Comfort and Joy

Review of A Christmas Carol, Hartford Stage

This is my fourth “go” at the Hartford Stage’s traditional production of Charles Dickens’ famed yuletide classic A Christmas Carol—now celebrating its 20th anniversary, having debuted in 1998, adapted and directed by Michael Wilson. That’s a lot of Christmases past, indeed. I saw two productions with Bill Raymond as Scrooge, and this is my second time seeing Michael Preston in the role, and the third time with Rachel Alderman as director. And you know what? I think it’s the best version I’ve yet seen.

Not sure why that is, since most of the cast is identical with last year, and the staging has not varied much in the four years I attended. This time, though, there seemed more gravitas to the whole. It could be that I’ve simply got beyond the warm haze of familiarity and am seeing the show not in comparison to the various Christmas Carols that have gone before, but as something in its own right. Or rite. As a ritual enactment, the Hartford Stage version has much to recommend it.

The Spirit of Christmas Present (Alan Rust) with the children of Hartford Stage’s A Christmas Carol (photos by T. Charles Erickson)

It’s moving, and it moves. The show boasts a wide-open set, with entrances from every direction, and has a second story that adds much visual interest. And there are skeletal ghosts—some even fly—that create a feel for how haunted is this story of a mean-spirited old miser. They’re fun but can also be a bit unnerving.

Preston’s Scrooge, even when he’s at his worst, tends to feel a bit sympathetic because we see how he’s beset by his own bluster. Scrooge, as we learn, was once much more of a softie, but some hard knocks—a very unaccommodating father and the loss of his beloved sister, for starters—and some bad choices, like letting the love of his life get away, have made for a very testy middle-age. He also prizes his fortune as something that’s for him to hoard and for others to do without. That’s the part that really needs a make-over.

Scrooge (Michael Preston)

The supporting cast—many in more than one role—have had time to make these roles their own. That includes, of course, Noble Shropshire, who delights as the air-borne and woebegone ghost of Marley, and as the doting Mrs. Dilber, Scrooge’s housekeeper, and Robert Hannon Davis’ dignified Bob Cratchit, and Terrell Donnell Sledge, who provides a welcome focus in the early second act as Scrooge’s warmly effusive Nephew, Fred. As Belle, Scrooge’s one-time fiancée, Vanessa R. Butler plays well the heartstring-tugging of Scrooge’s big loss, a break that she treats as a sacrifice on her part.

The three debtors who transform into the spirits that haunt Scrooge’s uneasy slumbers on Christmas Eve are all top notch, both as street vendors and as ghosts. Bettye Pidgeon (Rebekah Jones), a doll vendor, Bert (Alan Rust), a fruit and cider vendor, and Mr. Marvel (John-Andrew Morrison), a watchworks vendor, already feel like familiar characters, and the three introduce some welcome comedy at Scrooge’s expense.

This year, I think the rebukes aimed at Scrooge by the spirits landed with a bit more force—maybe the travails of 2018 make even Christmas spirits less patient with pig-headed old fools like Scrooge. As Christmases Past, Rebekah Jones telling Scrooge not to blame her for the mistakes of his youth, and, as Christmases Present, Alan Rust’s use of Scrooge’s own callous words against him certainly come across as the dire lessons they’re meant to be. For all their cheeriness as ambassadors of Christmas, the spirits have to shock Scrooge into examining his life. And Preston’s Scrooge is every bit as fearful and repentant as he should be when the baleful Spirit of Christmases Yet to Come shows up.

Mrs. Cratchit (Shauna Miles), Mr. Cratchit (Robert Hannon Davis) and the Cratchit children

This year, I saw the show with some viewers who never saw A Christmas Carol before—in any form, I believe—and that fact made me attend a bit more anxiously. Certainly I wanted their experience of this great story to be memorable—as any first viewing of it should be—and I’m very pleased to say that, trying to make myself follow the story as if I didn’t already know it, I was thoroughly caught up and found the Hartford Stage version wonderfully faithful to the spirit of Dickens. I admired again how the script keeps much of his quaint but vivid language in play, as it should—such as the bit about the doornail and the Victorian fussiness with statements of sentiment. It’s hard to imagine, for instance, how the dialogue at the Cratchits, in a scene from the possible future, could be improved upon, made effective by the way Davis and Shauna Miles, as Mrs. Cratchit, underplay their grief for the children’s sake.

As Cratchit reminds Scrooge early on, Christmas Day comes but once a year. True, but it comes round every year. Whatever significance one attaches to the fact of the day and its long tradition, A Christmas Carol attests to the notion that we could all do much better in treating others—whether strangers, co-workers, employees, or relatives—humanely, and that, as we close in on the date when we change the old calendar for the new, many of us would do well to turn over a new leaf. How one nasty man becomes generous and open with others is a tale worth seeing, and seeing done well. Hartford Stage’s production delivers comfort and joy.

Mrs. and Mr. Fezziwig (Shauna Miles and Kenneth De Abrew) and the ensemble

A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas
By Charles Dickens
Adapted and originally directed by Michael Wilson
Directed by Rachel Alderman

Choreographer: Hope Clarke; Scenic Design: Tony Straiges; Costume Design: Alejo Vietti; Lighting Design: Robert Wierzel; Original Music & Sound Design: John Gromada; Original Costume Design: Zack Brown; Wig Design: Brittany Hartman; Flying Effects: ZFX, Inc.; Music Director: Ken Clark; Vocal Coach: Ben Furey; Associate Lighting Designer: Robert W. Henderson, Jr.; Associate Choreographer: Derric Harris; Youth Director: Shelby Demke; Production Stage Manager: Martin Lechner; Assistant Stage Manager: Kelly Hardy; Production Manager: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy; Associate Artistic Director: Elizabeth Williamson

Cast: Vanessa Butler, Robert Hannon Davis, Kenneth De Abrew, Rebecka Jones, Sarah Killough, Shauna Miles, John-Andrew Morrison, Michael Preston, Buzz Roody, Alan Rust, Noble Shropshire, Terrell Donnell Sledge

The Hartt School Ensemble: Christopher Bailey, Patrick Conaway, Austin Doughty, Karla Gallegos, Holly Hill, Aubrey Jowers, Mark Lawrence, Peter Mann, Rachel Moses, Ariana Ortmann, Haley Tyson, Leslie Blake Walker, Matthew Werner, Reid Williams

The Children: Isabella Grace Corica, Ethan Dinello, Damien Galvez, Elijah J. Gibson, Lily Girard, Norah Girard, Nicholas Glowacki, Brendan Reilly Harris, Maddiekay Harris, Tyra Harris, Maxwell (Max) Albert Kerz, Emma Kindl, Michkael Jude McKenzie, Andrew Michaels, Addison Pancoast, Shannen Penn, Meghan Pratt, Messiah J. Price, Divena Rai, Tessa Corrie Rosenfield, Fred Thornley IV, Jake Totten, Ava Lynn Vercellone, RJ Vercellone, Leela Hatshepsut Washington-Crowther, Julia Claire Weston, Anderson Wilder, Tilden Wilder

Hartford Stage
November 23-December 29, 2018

When We Had Gone Astray

Review of A Christmas Carol, Hartford Stage

The Hartford Stage’s annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as adapted by Michael Wilson, gets a new wrapping this holiday season. With a new Scrooge and second-time director Rachel Alderman at the helm, the well-known story has a different feel. Nothing too drastic, mind you—this is still the story of how a miserly curmudgeon’s reclamation from a mean, grasping life helps to make the season bright. And yet I was struck by a different tone to the whole, and that makes for a bit of a new experience.

The venerable Bill Raymond played Ebenezer Scrooge for many a year, and his version aimed to tickle more than provoke. The play—despite some dark patches—ends happily for all, so there’s much to be said for keeping the spirits high throughout. This year, Michael Preston—formerly seen in the role of Mr. Marvel—gives Scrooge a decidedly more donnish air. Looking like an overweening professor not likely to give high marks to anyone, Preston is far less madcap than Raymond and more haunted.

Marley's ghost (Noble Shropshire), Scrooge (Michael Preston) (photos: T. Charles Erickson)

The story of a man who has to come to terms with his past before it’s too late has much to commend it dramatically. And that’s what Alderman’s version puts before us. What’s more, I found myself thinking, it doesn’t really have to be a Christmas story.

The Hartford Stage adaptation has always foregrounded the ghosts—with all those skeleton-headed apparitions—and they needn’t be tied to the virgin birth. They represent skeletons in the closet, so to speak, and the past that haunts us with its malevolent glee that we can’t do anything to change it.

Scrooge (Michael Preston), the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come (Alessandro Gian Viviano)

This year, the big clocks that spin as projections on the stage seemed all the more baleful. Preston’s Scrooge is a man full of remorse and the ghosts make him live through the pain of his past (even those who warmed it, like his sister, his fiancée and his old boss, are now gone), the heartlessness of his irritable present, and the dark forebodings of the future. His interplay with the shades of things that were, are, and may be is as full of psychological truth as it is of supernatural soliciting.

Scrooge (Michael Preston), Mr. Marvel (John-Andrew Morrison)

The change in the tone of the central role made me think a bit more about this story than I tend to do, since I know it so well. Dickens came up with a double-whammy winner—Christmas and ghosts—and that has made the story so enduring. And it’s also a story that has the great novelist’s sense of caricature, and so all the characters are indelible.

Mrs. and Mr. Fezziwig (Shauna Miles and Kenneth De Abrew) and cast

And that means there’s many a fine role for the cast. Two of the best fall to Noble Shropshire, fearsome as Marley’s ghost and winning as Scrooge’s servant Mrs. Dilber. John-Andrew Morrison, the new Mr. Marvel—a seller of novelties—is lively, as are the Fezziwigs (Kenneth De Abrew and Shauna Miles). Miles also doubles as a particularly strong Mrs. Cratchit, with Robert Hannon Davis her suitably chastened husband, Bob. Alan Rust returns as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Bert, a beverage purveyor, and is quite grand as both. And this year Rebekah Jones gives the Ghost of Christmas Past a bit more stately melancholy.

Mrs. Cratchit (Shauna Miles), Mr. Cratchit (Robert Hannon Davis) and cast

The staging is fluid, with props more than sets, and, while that works fine for Scrooge’s bedroom—with its imposing fourposter—and his counting house, it’s less successful at suggesting the Cratchits’ cramped hovel. And so the party sequence hosted by Scrooge’s nephew (Terrell Donnell Sledge) and his wife (Vanessa R. Butler), with numerous guests and games, is a welcome set-piece in Act Two. The large, varied cast, the lighting, costumes—especially the ghostly apparitions from different historical eras—and special flying effects all add up to colorful and exciting spectacle.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (Rebekah Jones) and children cast members, with Scrooge (Michael Preston)

The many children in the production add to the cheer, and seem all the more a reminder of how swiftly the world of youth passes away. In the end, of course, Scrooge recognizes the true meaning of Christmas—in its “do unto others” sense—but one could also say he realizes that the only way to overcome the past is to pay it forward for the future. A lesson our leaders would do well to consider, though the spirit of the unregenerate Scrooge seems more than ever apparent just now.

A Christmas Carol
Adapted from the novella by Charles Dickens
Original Director and Adaptor: Michael Wilson
Directed by Rachel Alderman

Scenic Designer Tony Straiges; Costume Designer: Alejo Vietti; Original Costume Designer: Zack Brown; Lighting Designer: Robert Wierzel; Original Music and Sound Designer: John Gromada; Choreographer: Hope Clarke; Musical Director: Ken Clark; Assistant Choreographer: Derric Harris; Dance Captain: Sarah Killough; Vocal Coach: Ben Furey; Stage Manager: Martin Lechner; Assistant Stage Manager: Kelly Hardy; Youth Director: Shelby Demke; Assistant Youth Director: Catherine Michaels; Assistant Director/ Dramaturg: William Steinberger

Cast: Vanessa R Butler, Robert Hannon Davis, Kenneth De Abrew, Rebecka Jones, Sarah Killough, Shauna Miles, John-Andrew Morrison, Michael Preston, Buzz Roddy, Alan Rust, Noble Shropshire, Terrell Donnell Sledge

Cast members from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford: Laura Axelrod, Jake Blakeslee, Rebecca Chism, Brittany DeAngelis, Jamaal Fields-Green, Dan Macke, Alyssa Marino, Evan McReddie, Daniel Owens, Nicholas Rylands, Dawniella Sinder, Austin Tipograph, Alessandro Gian Viviano, Dominique Rose Waite

Youth Ensemble Cast: Isabella Corica, Hunter S. Cruz, Ethan DiNello, Lily Girard, Norah Girard, Nicholas Glowacki, Jaime Han, Brendan Reilly Harris, Emma Kindl, Amelia Lopa, Timothy McGuire, Andrew Michaels, Majesty-Alexis Moore, Princess-Larrine Moore, Alexander O’Brien, Addison Pancoast, Ethan Pancoast, Meghan Pratt, Tessa Rosenfield, Ankit Roy, Sana “Prince” Sarr, Taylor Santana, Jordyn Schmidt, Fred Thornley IV, Ava Vercellone, RJ Vercellone

Hartford Stage
November 24-December 30, 2017

'Tis the Season

Review: A Christmas Carol, A Live Radio Play, Music Theatre of Connecticut

The story of Ebenezer Scrooge, all too familiar as it may be, always has something to tell us, which is one reason why it is the inescapable chestnut of every holiday season. Charles Dickens created a figure in his A Christmas Carol that has long been celebrated for its unflagging resonance. This year, two productions not too far from New Haven have re-imagined the story to achieve different effects.

The staples are the same—the humbugging miser, the spirits of Christmases past, present and future, the ghost of Marley, the poor, and the uplift of seeing a soul restored. The tale has had any number of updates and celebrity turns, much as every singer worthy of the name has assayed an album of Christmas tunes sooner or later. And yet there’s a seriousness to the tale that saves it from being yet another helping of seasonal schmaltz.

At Music Theater of Connecticut, Joe Landry has given Scrooge and company the same treatment he gave to the great and unavoidable American Christmas story, It’s a Wonderful Life: namely, Landry has turned Dickens’ classic into a script for a radio broadcast. The conceit of the show is that, rather than watching a straight-forward play, we are watching actors “on the air,” so that we become a studio audience for a fictitious broadcast. Part of the fun of that set-up is that the actual actors in the play we’re watching are performing as radio personalities first, and Dickensian characters, second.

Sally Applewhite (Elissa DeMaria), Lana Sherwood (Kaia Monroe), Freddie Filmore (Mike Boland), Jake Laurents (Matt Grasso), Harry Heywood (Jacob Sherburne)

Mike Boland plays Freddie Filmore, who enacts Scrooge; Elissa DeMaria plays Sally Applewhite, who voices Martha Cratchit, Scrooge’s fiancée, and the wife of Scrooge’s nephew; Matt Grasso plays Jake Laurents, who plays Scrooge’s nephew and Tiny Tim; Kaia Monroe plays Lana Sherwood, who performs Mrs. Cratchit and the Ghost of Christmas Past; Jacob Sherburne plays Harry Heywood, who delivers Marley, Cratchit, and the Ghost of Christmas Present. There are many other incidental characters and sometimes those are the most rewarding for comic touches—such as the take-offs of Scrooge’s priggish business acquaintances by Grasso and Sherburne, and the lively scene when DeMaria, Monroe, Grasso and Sherburne enact the scrounging low-lives who pawn Scrooge’s meager possessions.

Matt Grasso, Kaia Monroe, Jacob Sherburne, Elissa DeMaria

There are fewer outright comic elements in A Christmas Carol than in It’s a Wonderful Life, so the use of commercial breaks—for a fruitcake purveyor—are welcome additions. The story of Scrooge—as Hartford Stage’s current production shows—has an inherent drama that could be detached from the question of Christmas cheer and still be worthwhile. MTC’s production plays to the warm and fuzzy qualities that we would expect from a broadcast playing in living rooms. As with It’s a Wonderful Life, the era of the broadcast already supports a feeling of nostalgia for the bygone comforts of Christmases past. And that means the whole is pitched so as to bring both a twinkle and a tear to the eye.

Scrooge (Mike Boland)

As Scrooge, Boland truly seems a man set in his ways, impervious to the needs of others and the charms of the season. His fear when confronted with the visions provided by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is convincing and helps to make the lesson of the spirits feel earned. The Ghost of the future has no lines but is instead signified by sound effects—and watching the cast perform sound effects, or Foley, is another aspect that makes the old-time radio show setting enjoyable. In terms of voice effects—important to making these characters alive for listeners—Sherburne’s Marley is chilling and his Ghost of Christmas Present warmly chiding; Grasso gets the most boisterous characters and keeps the show merry; DeMaria, who was a memorable Violet Bick in It’s a Wonderful Life, doesn’t get to be as sexy this time—except in one of the commercial spots—but she’s good at ingenue too; Monroe gets the arch tones of the Ghost of Christmas Past and the straightened Londoner of Mrs. Cratchit and shines as the blustery cockney, Mrs. Dilber.

As with It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s easy to get caught up in the drama when one knows so well the story and the lines, and it’s a treat to see a faithful rendition that hits all the high points, while we imagine it all taking place in our minds just like those visions of sugar plums.

A Christmas Carol, A Live Radio Play
Adapted for the Stage by Joe Landry with Music by Kevin Connors
Based on the novella by Charles Dickens
Directed by Tim Howard

Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Set Design: Jordan Janota; Lighting Design: Michael Blagys; Sound Design: Monet Fleming; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling; Musical Direction: Matt Johnson

Cast: Mike Boland, Elissa DeMaria, Matt Grasso, Kaia Monroe, Jacob Sherburne

Music Theatre of Connecticut
December 1-17, 2017

It's Not Too Late

Review of A Christmas Carol, Hartford Stage

This year, Hartford Stage’s beloved Scrooge will take his final bow and make his final “Bah, humbug!” Bill Raymond has been experiencing Charles Dickens’ seasonal reclamation project for 17 years, and if you haven’t caught his act, there’s no time like Christmas present. It’s a propitious time to see the annual favorite even if you already have, for this year the show is directed by Broken Umbrella’s own Rachel Alderman, which makes for a nice New Haven-Hartford bridge.

Bettye Pidgeon (Johanna Morrison), Scrooge (Bill Raymond) (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

At the show I attended, Raymond was pulling out the stops, having a grand old time. His has always been a slyly comic take on Scrooge and now the old boy is getting a bit zany. Scrooge has often been played by actors who were better at the grasping “old screw” than the “giddy as a schoolboy” convert to Christmas cheer, but Raymond’s Scrooge is more curmudgeon than scourge. When he encounters the creditors who will later become the Christmas ghosts who haunt his uneasy sleep, he seems almost to be winking at them, since he knows—and we all know—what’s going to happen.

This Ebenezer is really in his element as the unseen guest and enthusiastic reveler at his nephew’s party, and when he has to face the final reckoning presented by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, it’s easy to feel sorry for the old gent. Other than being irritable and not forgiving debts or forking over charity, the old skinflint doesn’t seem so bad. There are worse examples running around these days in dire need of some Christmas comeuppance. As the Ghost of Christmas Present reminds us, the worst ill besetting mankind is ignorance.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Bill Raymond) (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

The open stage at Hartford keeps everything nipping along smartly, so we move easily from Scrooge’s ponderous four-poster to Fezziwig’s premises, from the Cratchits’ frugal feast to the nephew’s sumptuous spread. The various levels of the stage add visual interest and each ghost gets a big entrance.

The children of Bert, a fruit and cider vendor (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

An endearing draw of the show are the child actors who fill out many scenes, reminding us that Christmas is for the kids, and also letting the youngsters in the audience exalt in seeing their own generation on the stage. And then there are the ghosts.

The ghost of Jacob Marley (Noble Shropshire), Scrooge (Bill Raymond) (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

The Hartford Stage version never lets us forget that A Christmas Carol is one of the most venerable ghost stories there is. The parade of skull-topped figures who open the show, some of whom fly about, make for a dramatic charge. Not only is Scrooge guided by spirits representing the Christmas season in the past, the present, and the future, but he also is haunted by people already gone—beginning with Marley, but including his sister Fanny, his old boss, and, eventually, himself, to say nothing of the sad possibility of Tiny Tim’s untimely end. A Christmas Carol isn’t about tying one on and feeling good about yourself; it’s about realizing that time is short and that you should do more for others while you have the chance. To that end, the Hartford Stage is hosting “Tiny Tim’s Holiday Food Drive”* to benefit Hands on Hartford’s MANNA program.

Tiny Tim (Fred Thornley IV), Bob Cratchit (Robert Hannon Davis) (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

My favorite version of Ebenezer’s journey to beneficence is the old British version from 1951 starring Alistair Sims. The Hartford Stage version retains the use of the lovely tune “Barbara Allen” used so effectively in the film as well as here. In the Hartford’s version, the songs and comedy—such as Scrooge knocking about with a huge dummy turkey, and Noble Shropshire as the irrepressible Mrs. Dilber—and the handsome production values help to make the show bright.

-- A final talkback with Bill Raymond will take place after the 7:30 show on Wednesday, December 14, and, if you can’t make that but want to express your appreciation of his long tenure in the role as a part your Christmases past, postcards are provided in the lower lobby for “Letters to Bill.”--

A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas
By Charles Dickens
Adapted and originally directed by Michael Wilson
Directed by Rachel Alderman

Choreographer: Hope Clarke; Scenic Design: Tony Staiges; Costume Design: Alejo Vietti; Lighting Design: Robert Wierzel; Original Music & Sound Design: John Gromada; Original Costume Design: Zack Brown; Music Director: Ken Clark; Dramaturg: Fiona Kyle; Flying Effects: ZFX, Inc.; Vocal Coach: Ben Furey; Associate Lighting Designer: Robert W. Henderson, Jr.; Youth Director: Shelby Demke; Production Stage Manager: Martin Lechner; Assistant Stage Manager: Kelly Hardy

Cast (in order of appearance): Bill Raymond, Buzz Roddy, Noble Shropshire, Nate Healey, Robert Hannon Davis, Terrell Donnell Sledge, Flor De Liz Perez, Charlie Tirrell, Joey Heimbach, Daniel Shea, Johanna Morrison, Hannah Dalessio, Alan Rust, Michael Preston, Cara Rashkin, Vanessa R. Butler, Billy Saunders, Jr., Troyer Coultas, Spencer S. Lawson, Margaret Anne Murphy, Jillian Frankel, Madeleine Stevens, Greg Seage, Eve Rosenthal

The Children: Charlize Calcagno, Hunter Cruz, Emma Kindl, Julia Weston, Luciana Calcagno, Nicholas Glowacki, Brendan Reilley Harris, Timothy McGuire, Addison Pancoast, Tilden Wilder, Miguel Cardona, Jr., Ankit Roy, Ella Rain Bernaducci, Sophia Rose Tomko, Sophia Friedman, Lily Girard, Celine Cardona, Ava Lynn Vercellone, Atticus Burello, Jack Wenz, Fred Faulkner, Max McGowan, Norah Girard, Andrew Michaels, Ethan Pancoast, Fred Thornley IV, Aiden McMillan, Dermot McMillan

Hartford Stage
November 25-December 30, 2016

*Founded in 1969 as Center City Churches, Hands On Hartford’s programs focus on food, housing, economic security, engaging volunteers and connecting communities. MANNA provides direct relief to thousands of Hartford neighbors each month. Patrons may drop off non-perishable goods at Guest Services in the Geo & Laura Estes Lobby on performance days for A Christmas Carol or at the box office during regular business hours. Suggested food items include:

• Boxed cereal
• Canned fruit and vegetables
• Drinks (coffee, tea, 100% juice)
• White or brown rice
• Pasta and sauce
• Canned tuna
• Canned soup
• Peanut butter and jelly
• Backpack-friendly snacks

For more information about Tiny Tim’s Holiday Food Drive, contact tmacnaughton@hartfordstage.org or call 860-520-7114.

A Christmas Present

Review of A Christmas Carol at Hartford Stage First of all, full disclosure: I’m an A Christmas Carol enthusiast. Annually, “at this festive season of the year,” I watch Scrooge, the 1951 film starring Alastair Sims. And, depending upon circumstances, I sometimes manage viewings of the remake starring George C. Scott, and the charming cartoon version featuring Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo, and I’ll no doubt catch Bill Murray in the edgier Eighties update, Scrooged! I’ve also read the novella aloud several times and will gladly do so at the drop of a hat—preferably a Dickensian topper. The transformation of the world’s most famous miser into a benevolent figure full of good will is one of my favorite stories. What’s more, it’s a great ghost story too.

Others must feel the same way, which is why Michael Wilson’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic—generally called “immortal”—is enjoying its 17th seasonal production at Hartford Stage, directed by third-time director, and Associate Artistic Director, Maxwell Williams. Indeed, it’s the sort of production that has no doubt become a holiday tradition for many in the Hartford area.

Begin with Bill Raymond—who you might know from The Wire where he played “The Greek,” but who I remember as a drunken, irascible Santa in The Ref (another seasonal favorite)—as Ebenezer Scrooge. Raymond has a lock on this part at Hartford Stage and it’s fun to watch him vary his rhythms and reactions in a role that many of us could probably recite along with him. His Scrooge is more cantankerous than mean, a crotchety cuss who likes to mock well-meaning folk and dismiss heartfelt effusions. He—and maybe you know the feeling—simply has no patience with his fellowman any longer. But he’s also, and this Raymond gets across well, very self-satisfied . . . until those ghosts start puncturing his insularity. Then we watch him start questioning everything he thought he’d made up his mind about.

And this production, while keeping the three Ghosts—of Past, Present, and Future—mostly as Dickens conceived them, also throws at Scrooge a battery of skull-headed ghosts, lit with funhouse colors, that put a touch of Tim Burton into the proceedings. And Noble Shropshire, airborne and woebegone, makes for a great Marley, brandishing those chains he “forged in life” as though a lifeline keeping him tethered to the world. One of Dickens’ great ideas was the notion that cashboxes on chains would be the fetters of the man of business once his truck with the corporal world was done, and seeing Marley thus chained to the stage brings that idea home.

Wilson’s adaptation adds a touch of Wizard of Oz wherein three debtors Scrooge encounters on Christmas Eve are transformed into the ghosts who haunt his night. Johanna Morrison plays plaintive Bettye Pidgeon, a vendor of antique dolls, who becomes, arrayed in a vast sleigh, a matronly Ghost of Christmas Past, while Alan Rust plays a whimsical vendor of treats who becomes, in eye-popping finery, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Michael Preston plays Mr. Marvel, a comical vendor of gadgets and notions who may or may not become the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who arrives atop a steam-machine cycle. From each vendor, Scrooge grabs a prop by way of payment—antique doll, bottle of cheer, steam-driven clock—that dovetail with what the night holds in store. It’s a narrative device that helps to give motivation to all Scrooge’s encounters, and this is a show that, with its wide open space serving to support a lot of movement, recreates Dickens’ world as a world of meetings in the street.

But all that set-up does make the First Part of the show slower and a bit more expository than the Second Part, and the segments in the Past aren’t perhaps as chastening as they might be, though the Fezziwigs (Charlie Terrell and Rebecka Jones) are as lively as we’d hope and the parting between Ebenezer (Curtis Billings) and his beloved Belle (Gillian Williams) adds a dramatic focus amid the many comings and goings. Part Two is more concerned with what’s happening inside Scrooge; it features a very lively and enjoyable Victorian dinner party, that acts as a set-piece for holiday gatherings, at the home of Scrooge’s nephew (Billings again, who plays both the warmhearted Fred and the fatuous “Scrooge at 30” with a deft sense of presence, much as the lovely Williams, as both Belle and Fred’s wife lets Scrooge contemplate his nephew's life as what might have been his own happier life).

The costumes are all quite becoming and sumptuous, and the production’s many child actors charming in their roles as urchins and ghostly companions. At times Wilson’s script keeps faithful to the 1951 movie version—retaining the use of “Barbara Allen,” one of the loveliest tunes ever written—and at other points interacts with well-known wording in Dickens’ original, such as that bit about “dead as a doornail.” The play’s ending eschews the alternate endings of most filmed productions—either Scrooge springing his new self on Cratchit when the latter returns to work the day after Christmas (Dickens’ ending), or at the Cratchit’s home where he calls with his new found good cheer—in favor of Scrooge hosting a get-together of his own, after touching base with everyone he had oppressed on Christmas Eve. The change makes sense since “sets” in this busy production tend to consist of one or two handsome devices, such as Scrooge’s magnificent fourposter bed with canopy and curtains, or the cramped little table shared by all the Cratchits—with Robert Hannon Davis, a suitably buoyant Bob Cratchit.

All in all it’s an entertaining production that, no matter how familiar you may be with the story, offers much visual attraction, many lively vignettes, lots of capable touches and, at its heart, a mercurial character who, through a critical retrospective on his own life, comes to see a reason to change for the better. And, as the voice at the end of the 1951 film says, “may that be said of all of us.”

A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas By Charles Dickens, adapted and originally directed by Michael Wilson Directed by Maxwell Williams

Choreographer: Hope Clarke; Scenic Design: Tony Straiges; Costume Design: Alejo Vietti; Lighting Design: Robert Wierzel; Original Music and Sound Design: John Gromada; Original Costume Design: Zack Brown; Wig Designer: Brittany Hartman; Flying Effects: ZFX, Inc.; Music Director: Ken Clark; Associate Set Designer: Catherine Chung; Associate Lighting Designer: Robert W. Henderson, Jr.; Production Stage Manager: Martin Lechner; Assistant Stage Manager: Kelly Hardy; Youth Director: Kristy Chambrelli; Dramaturg: Elizabeth Williamson; Production Manager: Bryan T. Holcombe

Hartford Stage November 28-December 28, 2014

BBC Blues

I have been watching a lot of BBC Television lately. This surge of anglophilia was occasioned by my wife's return from Walmart with two collections of "BBC Video Classics" tucked into a plastic shopping bag. The first, "The Charles Dickens Collection," contained dramatizations of Our Mutual Friend, Great Expectations, Hard Times, Bleak House, Mrtin Chuzzelwit, and Oliver Twist; the second, "The Jane Austen Collection," featured—naturally enough—adaptations of her six complete novels.

Working my way through the latter, while folding laundry or stuffing envelopes, proved both illuminating and disappointing. The first thing you need to know is that both collections comprise BBC's first round of Masterpiece Theatre-like forays into high literature. All of the productions appeared in the 1970s and 1980s and were shot, to their detriment, as video.

Now let me be clear: I'm an unapologetically avid admirer of Austen. But no amount of avidity can forgive the woodenness of these productions. The stilted deliveries, passive blocking and not infrequent lack of dramatic subtext are fittingly complemented by the flaccid camera work, wan indoor lighting, and general absence of sound engineering. (Everybody speaks with a faint hallway echo).

While hardly distraught, I was, well, dismayed. Did Austen translate that badly? BBC productions clearly have the luxury of length, the lack of which in Hollywood productions was a continual source of frustration for me. In Emma Thompson's rendering of Sense and Senibility (1995), there is no midnight visit by the faithless but regretful John Willoughby, seeking forgiveness for his caddish behavior; in Keira Knightly's Pride and Prejudice (2005), scenes in Rosings Park and Pemberley are painfully abridged, while several characters were altogether eliminated.

Perhaps the faults I perceived lay in the dramatizations (the British term then for adaptation). I had started with Pride and Prejudice, a personal favorite. This BBC version had the distinct honor of being adapted for video by British writer Fay Weldon. Yet despite the seeming coup in selection of dramaturg, the execution was pale at best. It certainly did not compare favorably to BBC's 6-part reworking in 1995 with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. And yet somehow, I did receive some modicum of pleasure, so I turned to my next favorite novel, which I had recently read: Persuasion.

Ack! It was unwatchable. The blind were surely leading the blind when someone cast 38-year-old Ann Firbank as the 27-year-old Anne Elliot. Even worse, that someone then set her against the much younger looking Valerie Gearon (who was 34 but looked 25!), who played Anne's elder sister, Elizabeth Elliot. The overall effect was creepy, with the younger sister, the romantic object of the novel, looking like the older sister's mother!

The real test ultimately proved to be Sense and Sensibility because here I could compare BBC and Hollywood productions and directly. (I owned the 1995 movie version.) Now I could assess more intelligently what worked and what did not. The differences were palpable. Despite the inevitable contractions that movies impose on their novelistic sources, both adaptations shared a number of identical lines, demonstrating by contrast what real talent can deliver. Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet earn their reputations for subtlety and expressiveness when compared to the weirdly vapid and at times uninspired verbiage of the BBC production, which no doubt explains Masterpiece Theatre's reputation among some Americans in the '70s and '80s as a waste of cathode rays.

And yet…and yet, I can't seem to give up my commitment to Austen, even when done badly. To be blunt, as dramatizations of literary classics go, these BBC "video classics" suck—but not so much as not to be worth the watching. So is this what makes a "classic" a classic? Somehow the stories still compel even as the productions repel. There is a mystery here that I can't explain.

But forgive me. I see I have a load of laundry on the bed and Mansfield Park is in the DVD drive, so I best get back to work…