This hilariously dark Christmas comedy by Craig Lucas all starts when Rachel’s good cheer is doused by her quiet, moody husband. It is guilt that has him in such a bad mood. Finally he snaps, admitting that he has hired an assassin to break into the house and kill her that very night. But he realizes now that hiring the killer was a stupid solution for solving their marital problems, and that he should have just talked it over with her. However, it’s far too late to stop the professional killer, so he encourages her to climb out the bedroom window and stay in hiding for a while.

Her disbelief at her husband’s “sick joke” is quickly shattered by the sound of breaking glass in the basement, and the confused and distraught Rachel shimmies out the window, leaving behind her two young boys, her thoughtless husband, and her life as she knew it. But it’s all just beginning for poor Rachel. In fact, as it turns out, this year was a mild Christmas compared to the next few years when her Christmases will be haunted by Ghosts of Christmas Past of the most awful sort.

Lisel Gorell-Getz delivers a completely captivating performance as Rachel, her brilliant comedic timing and expressions compelling you to laugh out loud at her unbelievably horrible string of bad luck while also feeling for her loss and misfortune. Her misadventures lead her into a host of other amusingly bizarre characters and situations, from the home of the loving but secretive Lloyd (Rick Stevens) and deaf mute Pooty (Rene Pena) where nobody is quite as they seem, onto a farcical new game show called Your Mother or Your Wife where you can get rich if you can tell the difference between the woman who gave birth to you and the woman you married, and (not surprisingly) through a slew of six psychiatrists (all played by Robin Christ) who generally just leave the troubled Rachel even more bewildered than she was when she started.

Some of the brightest highlights in Director Kevin Burk’s excellent production of this dark comedy include a couple of car rides with Rachel and Lloyd in which Lloyd speaks almost exclusively through subtle but riotously funny expressions while Rachel can’t stop talking – first because she’s nervous about being in a strange man’s car right after fleeing her would-be murderer, and later in her best scene as she flees a murder scene while trying to logically piece together the nightmarish set of events she just left. They are driving a cute, little “car on a stick” that is slid on and off of the stage by unseen hands, one of the several clever contraptions put together by Scenic Designer Henry Loughman for the show.

Elsewhere, Celeste Innocenti is a hoot as Rachel’s crabby coworker, and Robin Christ offers a highly entertaining performance as the many different psychiatrists Rachel ends up seeing – especially as Doctor #4 when she tries to convince Rachel that all her troubles stem from her shocking and painful birth when she was forced to leave the comforting confines of the womb for the violent, reckless world in which she now finds herself.