Go! feature

The world’s snarkiest elf comes to life as New Edgecliff Theatre re-mounts a production of “The Santaland Diaries” after a three-year absence.

Based on the real-life experience of humorist David Sedaris as a 33-year-old elf in Macy’s Department Store, the monologue recounts his encounters with an array of Elves, Santas, parents, children and the culture of the commercial epicenter of the holidays.

A chance to play the part put a point in the ears of Northern Kentucky artist Russell Ihrig, drafted into the role by director Nathan Gabriel, a high school chum.

“I’d never really been that interested in acting, but this play made me interested,” he said. “Sedaris has a drank sense of humor that I share, like imagining Santaland as Satanland. Those are the kinds of things I find funny as well.”

Ihrig said that he’s met David Sedaris and has heard him read twice, but has worked with the director to make the presentation less like David and more like Russell to bring a level of honesty to the role.

“I’ve listened to (Sedaris) do ‘The Santaland Diaries’ so much that I’ve had to break myself from doing a David Sedaris impersonation,” he said.

The second act of the program is “Season’s Greetings,” in which Ihrig plays another Sedaris character, the horrific yet acidly funny Mrs. Dunbar, also played by Ihrig, a pathological upper-middle-class housewife who delivers a  Christmas letter from the dark side.

“I’m attracted to those shady things under the surface of everyday life,” said Ihrig, who has previously been in productions of “Greater Tuna,” where he played a series of female characters, and was also an ugly stepsister in a production of “Cinderella.”

“I love playing female,” he said. “We want to make it as genuine as possible, so we’re actually going in the totally opposite direction from the first act.”