SANTA'S GOT A BRAND-NEW BAG.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

KRIS KRINGLE, all those elves and mean old Bergermeister Meisterburger ... all they really need is a little ``R-E-S-P-E-C-T.'' Which is something they get absolutely none of from the Troubadour Theater Company. Instead - and much better - they get spoofed and sent up.

For the third consecutive holiday season, the pop-culture-savvy Troubies have put their music-meets-Shakespeare ways aside in order to plant a few dent marks in the yuletide spirit. ``Santa Claus Is Comin' to Motown'' - which superimposes the Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin, James Brown et al. onto the 1970 animated TV special - gives us Santa, Mrs. Claus, reindeer, toy-deprived children and as much freewheeling lunacy as the company can pack into a 90-minute evening. As per usual with this company, the result is a gas.

Director Matt Walker, playing the narrator/mail delivery man SD (for Special Deliveryman) has his performers robot walking through much of the early scenes (possibly to mimic the original's clunky animation). When Eric Heinly's on-stage band kicks up the music and the company breaks into Nadine Ellis' choreography, however, nobody has feet of metal. It's easy to forget that the Troubadour members - who are trained in the art of clowning - also possess better-than-average musical-theater skills as well.

Anyway, orphan Kris (played as an adult by red-haired Rory O'Malley) is taken in by the Kringle family of elves who have names like Dingle and Zingle and who suck on helium balloons before delivering their lines. A family of toy makers, the Kringles nurse a desire to break the stranglehold of Somber Town where the mean old Bergermeister (Mike Sulprizio) has outlawed toys. Accompanied by an unintelligible penguin named Topper (Tina Groff), Kris takes up the quest. Along the way, he meets up with a good-hearted and ``bootylicious'' schoolteacher named Jessica (Michelle Ann Johnson), who calls him ``Cree-ass.'' The rest is TV-land Christmas history, Troubadour style.

There's usually at least one quite inspired bit of stage business in everything the Troubies do on stage. In ``Motown,'' it belongs to a stilt- walking Beth Kennedy, playing the Winter Warlock, whose magic powers emanate from her 15-inch icicle fingers. During a scene where the Warlock is supposed to be in prison, technical mishaps and costume inconvenience made for some wonderful extra ad libbing (in a Troubadour show, you want something to go wrong).

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN' TO MOTOWN - Three and one half stars

Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 4 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 23.

Tickets: $30 to $37.50. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: The perennial animated TV special, decidedly not as you remember it.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Simon Yin, left, Rory O'Malley, Larry Thigpen, Lisa Valenzuela and Joseph Leo put some swing in Kris Kringle in Troubadour Theater's ``Santa Claus Is Comin' to Motown.''