The Carpenters Songbook: At Christmas

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Some voices are load-bearing. Karen Carpenter's is one - it holds up an entire idea of what December sounded like in a specific set of American houses, and people who were not alive for any of it still know every phrase, because it followed them through supermarkets and car radios until it became weather. The show does not pretend to be her. That matters, and it is the thing that makes or breaks a production like this: the arrangements are the originals, played by a live band, and the singing serves the songs rather than impersonating the person. What gets people is usually not the famous one. It is a deep cut somebody in the row behind you did not expect to hear, followed by a very particular silence. The audience skews older and sings along quietly, which is its own thing to witness. A Sunday night at the end of November, seven o'clock, at the smaller of downtown San Diego's two old theatres.