>>REVIEW
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Runs until December 24
Theatre Calgary
Max Bell Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Artistic director Dennis Garnhum took on a challenge as large as Theatre Calgary’s subscriber base, not to mention legions of Safeway shoppers and annual traditionalists, when he decided to revamp the company’s signature play. For 18 consecutive years, A Christmas Carol has packed ’em.
In the face of its continuing popularity, Garnhum brought a new script, a new production and a cast of new and familiar faces. The result is a grand success in grand scale.
Replacing the previous adaptation by Greg Nelson and Garnhum’s predecessor, Ian Prinsloo, Jerry Patch’s script distinguishes itself immediately with its introduction of London. Nelson and Prinsloo imagined a festive, exuberant street scene in which Scrooge (Stephen Hair) is a humbugging aberration. Patch’s London, on the other hand, is a dark, petty place where Scrooge’s greed fits quite comfortably and a Bobby is even willing to help the miserly protagonist evict a tenant. It isn’t until the visitation of the spirit of Christmas Past (Christian Goutsis), cunningly entering through a painting’s canvas, that Scrooge begins to see a more bearable world.
Compared with the relatively tame progression of past years, with Scrooge shifting in short order from "rude" to "utterly reformed," this clear movement from darkness to light is one of the play’s most refreshing changes. Children may want to look away when Bob Marley’s coffin opens with Halloween flourish after Scrooge leaves his favourite pub, but shutting eyes is much easier than adjusting an entire production.
In keeping with Theatre Calgary’s position as the local leader in production values, Christmas Carol’s new $600,000 production provides an impressive spectacle. Alexander Dodge’s set features distorted photos of Victorian London in a retreating perspective surrounded by a proscenium arch of massive clockwork gears. Movable sections of walls reveal, variously, the drawing room of Scrooge’s well-meaning nephew, Fred (Eric Nyland), and Bob Cratchit’s ramshackle home, while other set pieces descend from the ceiling. Along with original music by Scott Killian and decadent costuming by Kelly Wolf, the production is in every way the equal of past years and is impressive in its scale alone.
No less impressive than its technical details, Christmas Carol’s cast of 15 adult actors and seven children are an undeniably talented bunch. In addition to Hair’s annual turn as Scrooge, Trimble lends his characteristically rough humanity to the much-abused Bob Cratchit, and Nyland’s effusive Fred is a perfect counterpart to Hair’s harrumphing Scrooge. Displaying both actors’ skill and the strength of the new adaptation, a more developed romantic subplot between Scrooge and his one-time sweetheart, Belle (Elizabeth Kirkland), and Nathan Pronyshyn’s dour turn as the young Jacob Marley provide much-needed context for Scrooge’s eventual devolution into miser. Like a Christmas tree practically tipped over with the sheer volume of presents underneath it, the strength (and size) of Christmas Carol’s cast offers too many enticing choices to choose only one.
Moving with ease through the plays numerous jumps in time and place with such subtlety that the transition is invisible, Garnhum’s production benefits at every turn from its fresh script, production and talented cast. A Christmas Carol is as much a part of Theatre Calgary as the Max Bell Theatre itself, and though the company’s latest artistic director could no more derail its success than cancel the holiday itself, its new production will certainly leave his distinct stamp on a Calgary Christmas tradition. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.