Farmers Alley Theatre recently opened their production of “A Christmas Carol.” WMUK’s Gordon Bolar has this review.
Playwright Patrick Barlow puts a new spin on Charles Dickens’ old holiday chestnut, with his adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
Director Christopher Llewyn Ramirez fills the stage with seasonal song, movement, dance, and zany antics. More importantly, his production fills the packed house of Farmers Alley Theatre with continuous peals of raucous laughter.
Instead of the usual large cast required for A Christmas Carol, a versatile cast of five actors pluck dozens of roles out of thin air on a nearly bare stage, backed only by cardboard cut-out scenery.
As referenced in director Ramirez’s program notes, the audience is witnessing a “ghost story,” performed by playful spirits who haunt an old theatre. They know they are in a play and so do we. With the help of our imagination and willing suspension of disbelief, anything becomes possible in this space including apparitions, visiting the past, and envisioning the future.
At times these spirits and the characters they portray are appropriately illuminated by the theatre’s single ghost light, positioned downstage, as well as by Jason Frink’s atmospheric, creative lighting design.
Much of the production’s humor is generated by the comic metamorphoses of actors into living characters, ghosts, or even objects.
William Anthony Sebastian Rose the Second, for example, must, in rapid succession, play Scrooge’s nephew, a grandfather clock, and a fire in a stove. He’s quite convincing in all of these roles, including the fire.
If a performer is late for an entrance after a quick change from playing say, a Victrola speaker, no worries. It’s all part of an over-the-top, presentational style that allows for, and even relishes a few mistakes, takes to the audience, and a welcome host of cheap, laugh-milking tricks.
The chameleon-like Christopher Eastland makes some delightful transitions from a downtrodden Bob Cratchit, to the ghost of Jacob Marley, straining at a massive array of chains, and finally to portraying a full family of five stair-step children. All five, simultaneously.
The production is filled with running gags like the casual over the shoulder toss of white “snow” confetti by members of the parade of figures entering from a frosty street.
Another bit of comic business involves Nikki Yarnell’s portrayal of a poor widow. As she waits for a loan from Scrooge, he repeatedly commands her to sit on an extremely low foot-stool. Yarnell’s ridiculously slow, deliberate settling process delivers painfully funny results. Yarnell also shines with a music hall-like emcee rendering of an overly cheerful, cockney accented Ghost of Christmas Present.
Puppetry plays a key role in the show’s humor, including the purposefully clumsy representation of scenes in which Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past, charmingly rendered by Kim Krane, both fly through the air to revisit episodes from Scrooge’s younger days.
William Anthony Sebastian Rose the Second steals the show with his high-pitched supporting vocals and a hilarious, yet masterful, manipulation of a Tiny Tim puppet.
The chief object of the mischievous activities for these spirits and the characters they represent, is, of course, the stubborn, miserly, and often cruel, Ebenezer Scrooge.
The marvelously creative Mark Jaynes presents a lanky, more animated, and younger Scrooge than usual. Jaynes’ character is more an object of consternation and mockery than one of hatred. It’s hard to believe anyone could be that selfish and lacking in feeling for others.
In addition to his physical dexterity, Jaynes’ Scrooge possesses a quick wit, controlling vocal presence, and mental acuity. These traits serve him well in browbeating others, or defending his recalcitrance before the spirits who urge repentance and change.
Jaynes’ character is steadfast in his stance that the heart is no more than a muscle in his chest, and has no place in the realm of predatory loans, ledgers, and the gold that consume him. This posture holds until he is confronted by proof of his deceased mother’s love.
In her hushed, moving visitation as his mother’s spirit, Kim Krane provides pathos, heartfelt parental affection, and a long-forgotten gift. This contrasts starkly with the cynical, silly, and dismissive remarks Scrooge has made about love and its scarcity in the world around him.
Krane’s powerful scene sets up the believable transformation of Jaynes’ character, and serves as a catalyst for Scrooge’s exuberant celebration of giving. As he looks through a hand-held empty frame representing a window, he shouts season’s joy to those outside in the light of Christmas Day: by implication, a light much stronger than the dim ghost light extinguished at play’s end.