It was a tinseltown-tinted Christmas for local thespians Joost Tijssen and Pieter Van Loon. 

The two-man theatre troupe rang in the New Year with Dinner and Theatre, Holiday Edition—the most recent addition to their expanding roster of locally-created theatre productions. From Boxing Day to this past Saturday, January 6, the dynamic Dutch duo performed seven holiday-themed shows under the green-and-red lights which were set up at the Jasper Inn. 

Patrons laughed off a sumptuous three-course dinner, entertained as they were by the comedic antics of two ex-pat Netherlanders who have made Jasper their home. 

But even though their outrageous characterizations had the mostly-local audiences in stitches, it wasn’t all ho-ho-ho-ing about the holidays. The performance included a poignant dramatic scene by way of a Van Loon monologue—a theatrical device he hadn’t dabbled in before.

“That was a first for me,” Van Loon said. 

For many at the January 4 show, it wasn’t their first time taking in a Jasper Theater Productions performance. That much was clear as soon as the theme song for Dr. Bert trilled over the sound system. Dr. Bert is Van Loon’s outrageously confident, red-headed self-help guru—a hilarious mashup of perhaps Deepak Chopra, Jiminy Glick and Austin Powers—and when he bounded out from back stage in his gaudy blazer, with life lessons and quick fixes at the ready, knowing groans and anticipatory guffaws resonated through the audience. 

Those were followed by loud cheers for another recognizable character: Dr. Bert’s anger-ridden, ungulate patient, Eddy the Elk. 

Like their earlier acts, the Holiday show ingeniously utilized a simple yet surprisingly malleable set, a space just large enough to allow 53 people to revel in the duo’s indefatigable energy as they danced, pranced and wrestled each other around the room. With athletic choreography and inspired improv, they filled the Christmas cups of those needing a lift after the hectic holidays. They then jerked from the audience a tear or two; Van Loon’s message of not being so hard on ourselves when Christmas doesn’t look perfect, hit home.  

In fact, during the building of the set, Van Loon himself needed to be reminded of that mantra.

“At one point, I got really frustrated trying to hang this piece of garland properly,” Van Loon laughed.

Luckily, Tijssen’s experience as a set director for Hallmark came to the rescue. 

The 45-minute show played on scenarios that Jasper locals will be familiar with: one featured a holiday homecoming for the kid who’s moved to the big city, only to find his heart in the small town he grew up in. Another was the Christmas potluck gone awkwardly wrong. These scenes were natural fits for the improv experts, but another episode, wherein Tijssen performs an emotional reading of a fairly tale by Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen, presented a test for the actor.

“I’m usually very active onstage, so to just sit down and tell a story was a challenge,” Tijssen said. 

The audience had a similar issue at the end of the night. After being tugged through the hilarious highs and ludicrous lows of the Dinner and Theatre, Holiday Edition, they couldn’t help but give the show a standing ovation. 

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