Sunday, Dec. 8: The Roman custom of celebrating Saturnalia with a temporary topsy-turvy social order, during which servants were permitted to lord it over their masters, persisted well after the Christianization of Europe. In his Anatomy of Abuses in England in Shakspere’s Youth (1583), the pamphleteer Phillip Stubbes railed against the ongoing practice of a Lord of Misrule being appointed by a mob to take over a country church at Christmastime. That odd tradition has largely been forgotten, but the Brooklyn-based Dzieci Theatre – known hereabouts for its performances of Makbet at Opus 40 – does its best to keep the memory alive.

A loving homage to all the classic whodunits that have gone before (especially in the Agatha Christie mode), Knives Out addresses the problem of every possible plot twist having already been used at least once by introducing a topical subtext of class warfare and anti-immigrant bias. It’s not mere PC window-dressing; it drives the plot in ways that can’t be ignored.