By LARRY ADAMS
A Seat on the Aisle
“Marley was dead, to begin with.”
Few opening lines in literature or theater are more instantly recognizable. With just these six morbid words, nearly every man, woman, and child in western civilization knows he or she is in for Charles Dickens’s classic tale of the miserly Mr. Scrooge and his redemption. (Sorry for the spoiler, but if you’re over 5 years old and don’t know by now…)
Everyone’s read it. Everyone’s seen it. Everyone from the Muppets to Mr. Magoo has done a parody of it. And therein lies the great challenge for any director tasked with bringing this show to the stage: How do you make fresh a show whose first words somewhat ironically signal a story that has been figuratively done to death?
Indiana Repertory Theatre has faced this challenge every holiday season since 1996 – and a few before – and bested it, as its status as a perennial audience pleaser would suggest. More than just a crowd favorite, A Christmas Carol has become a crowd expectation, or at least a tradition for many central Indiana families; Christmas would just not be Christmas without it. IRT’s 2023 production of this timeless classic adds to that winning tradition – and deservedly so.
From the moment the doors to the OneAmerica Mainstage auditorium open, Russel Metheny’s snow-covered set instantly draws the audience into the magic of the evening. Complimented by Lighting Designer Michael Lincoln’s uniformly brilliant work, the stage conjures up an appropriately ghostly, Victorian world of both squalid misery and seasonal splendor. Necessarily minimalist, given the number and variety of setting changes through the course of the show, scenes are not so much created as evoked, in a seamless choreography of actors, props and set pieces gliding in from the wings, floating down from the rafters and popping up through trapdoors in the boards.
Rob Johansen (center) as Scrooge. (Photo by Zach Rosing)
With the exception of Rob Johansen as Scrooge, each member of the cast takes on a variety of roles through the course of the evening and, aided by the lovely and apt costuming of Linda Pisano, succeeds in creating distinct and delightful characters. Standouts this night included Juniper O’Meara-Gaines, whose sweet singing voice and confident stage presence belie her young years, and Sean Blake, who lit up the stage in nearly every appearance, despite an unfortunate (perhaps directorial?) decision to wedge sexual innuendo into this year’s Ghost of Christmas Present. I presume this was done both in a bid for a few cheap laughs and in a nod toward inclusivity, which, although successful and certainly fashionable in our time and narrative, seemed jarringly out of place in Dickens’s.
For his part, Johansen ably shoulders the unenviable burden of presenting a unique take on a well-worn literary figure whose centrality to the plot limits the amount of creative freedom one can bring to bear. For the most part he succeeds, though his unusually frenetic portrayal of Old Scrooge in the initial scenes detracts somewhat from the necessary contrast with the giddy and redeemed New Scrooge of the conclusion.
Perhaps my only real problem with the production arises from the script itself, which relies heavily – and I do mean HEAVILY – on narration. Adapting any great work for the stage implies a desire, indeed an obligation, to “show” rather than “tell,” but this production at times feels more like a reading than a dramatization.
Quibbles aside, IRT’s A Christmas Carol is on balance a triumph, a visual spectacle, and a comfortable, pleasing, and even nostalgic way of inviting Christmas back into our hearts and minds this year and, I imagine, every year more generally. Perhaps that is why Dickens’s odd tale of ghosts in December remains a treasured holiday classic. And perhaps, because of that, a bold and fresh take isn’t all that necessary. Tradition has its value for every culture and every generation, after all. It celebrates the common virtues of a society. It brings us and binds us together. For many of us, that’s what Christmas is all about.
“If Scrooge can change, maybe so can we,” Director Priscilla Lindsay concludes in her program notes, and that is a hopeful thought for the Season. But if, in some ways, Scrooge doesn’t change, year after year, generation after generation – well, maybe there’s some comfort in that as well.
Merry Christmas, dear readers. And God bless us, every one.
Read more great play reviews from A Seat on the Aisle at asota.wordpress.com.
(From left) Sean Blake as Christmas Present, Noah Gringauz as Tiny Tim, Ryan Artzberger as Bob Cratchit, and Rob Johansen as Scrooge. (Photo by Zach Rosing)