Ah, a break from the holly jolly, jingle jangle overload of the season: TheatreWorks’ production of “Born Yesterday,” which runs through Dec. 24, has not even a hint of the craziest (and sweetest) season of the year.

Instead, it follows the 40-year-old company’s holiday playbook, which includes occasional warhorses (“A Christmas Carol”), as well as many alt classics (“Santaland Diaries”) and off-beat comedies (“The Lying Kind”). “Born Yesterday,” which began a three-year run on Broadway in 1946 and inspired multiple films and revivals, fits into the form nicely, bringing playwright Garson Kanin’s comic banter, Hollywood stereotypes and Capra-esque world view, all set in a high-priced hotel room in post-World War II Washington.

Thomas Borrillo plays Harry Brock, a wealthy junk man in town to intimidate key congressmen into passing shady legislation allowing Harry to pillage bombed-out Europe.

An actor with New York City, TV and film credits, Borrillo creates a three- dimensional brute with delightful touches of Jackie Gleason, Andrew Dice Clay and, for pure menace, James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. Borrillo wields Harry carefully, owning Kanin’s sometimes complex dialogue (“Senator, what you got I never want to be”) and making convincing shifts from bully to charmer to all-around lout to ultimately a man eroded by the will of a beauty in cat-eye glasses. When Borrillo enters the stage, all eyes go to him.

Which is a bit of a problem, since the play is centered on Harry’s arm candy, former chorine Billie Dawn (Carley Cornelius), a dumb blonde (“I’m stupid and I like it,” she says), who gets some learnin’ and decides to undermine Brock’s plans. A good actor with impressive out-of-town credits and a fine regional accent, Cornelius does a lot of things right on opening night, including driving a searing confrontation between Billie and Harry’s high-toned but corrupt lawyer. The house virtually held its breath when she tells him, “I’m not so sure you’re better than him – and maybe you’re worse.”

But the diminutive Cornelius doesn’t quite conjure the mercurial mix of physical presence, va-va-voom and brass to command Billie – or this story. Cornelius isn’t helped much by costumer designer Brenda King’s wardrobe. In her first turn with TheatreWorks, King dresses Billie in an oddly styled wig and a series of not-quite-glamorous outfits that simply don’t work for a gal whose looks are so central to her . er, job description. King does better with everyone else, ensuring Harry’s almost busting out of his double-breasted jacket, for example, and that journalist Paul Verrall’s natty vest, blazer and horn rims scream college education.

Michael Gonring does his best as Verrall, the man Harry pays to tutor Billie. But even William Holden, who played the role in the 1950 film, hardly managed to elevate the part beyond being a foil for Harry and Billie. Gonring excelled at the little exchanges, the tiny gestures that telegraph humanity, but when called on to go big, as in Verrall’s important final act speech, his words seem hollow. And the romance with Billie? About the same.

There are standouts here, though. Joel Leffert, who killed it as painter Mark Rothko in TheatreWorks’ 2013 production of “Red,” crafts another masterfully complex character in Ed Devery, Harry’s longtime lawyer and bag man. Devery is a secondary character, but Leffert wrings every last bit of humanity – shame, pride, drunken numbness – from a broken-down man who once commanded the nation’s respect.

In a small role, Mark E. Cannon gives the flunky Eddie Brock just enough ’40s flair and dimension. Michael Augenstein and Jane Fromme – both TheatreWorks veterans – carve out full blown individuals in the tainted senator and his just-so wife.

And, finally, David M. Barber’s set design was both practically conceived and a great snapshot of midcentury hotel luxury.

Our grade: B-