Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol should affect us viscerally. After all, Dickens' parable has a universal application. Scrooge is the worst in all of us, our own selfishness, greed, hatred of others, impatience with the needy. Bob Cratchit is the hard-working poor fellow we usually ignore, and Tiny Tim is all the damaged, underprivileged people whose plight we choose not to think about. When the Ghost of Christmas Past arrives, it's to remind us of the innocence and goodness we once had; and when the two other Ghosts come, it's to show us what a botch we've made of the present, and what a horror our future will be if we don't shape up. Finally, Scrooge's transformation at story's end is our redemption, assuming we've finally got our priorities straight. Now we can hear Tiny Tim's "God bless us, everyone" and feel that, after all, we have a place in the blessing. We are jaded no more.
The only problem with the otherwise likable Christmas Carol at freeFall Theatre is that it doesn't really engage us on this personal level. It's beautiful to look at, musically interesting, universally well-acted — but so crisp and efficient that it never has time to get down into the shadowland of our fears and our guilt. If you're looking for a cheerful complement to the season, you'll find it in this bright, highly professional production. But if you're looking for your annual Dickens catharsis, you'll have to go elsewhere. For a play with four ghosts, this show's always less than haunting.
Still, it's jam-packed with other virtues. To begin with the acting, Stephen Patterson as Scrooge is wonderfully vicious, a real outlaw among Victorians, fuming and fretting and exasperated with all the proles who dare to feel generous in spite of their poverty. As Bob Cratchit, Craig Sculli is a visibly pleasant chap, too warm and good-natured to leave even Scrooge out of his best wishes, while Katherine Michelle Tanner as Mrs. Cratchit tends to see the old miser with less generosity. Another standout is Jason Simon, a heavyset actor playing multiple parts, who with his deep laugh and long beard seems to have stepped right out of Dickens' robust imagination. Joshua Culley as Tiny Tim, though he doesn't have much stage time, is innocence itself, and the radiant Nicole Kaplan, as young Scrooge's sweetheart Belle, seems able to convey holiday spirit with just her smile.
Not all the performances are quite successful, though. Candler Budd as Marley's Ghost isn't as frightening as he should be: with his shock of white hair and startled eyes he looks more like an aging rocker than an Emissary From the Grave, and the chains that he carries appear much too phony. Joel Gennari is the astonishingly tall Ghost of Christmas Future, but he walks so haltingly across the stage, we're reminded not of hell but of the unwieldiness of his costume. There are a dozen other fine actors in smallish parts, but it's hard to develop a feeling for any of them when they hold the stage so briefly. Even old Scrooge becomes secondary in the latter parts of the play, when we're treated to a tale that's so fast-moving, there's no time to feel.
The songs — music by Bruce Greer and lyrics by play adapter Keith Ferguson — are tolerably attractive, but all the actors' voices are strong, with Kaplan's the most impressive. There are some fun special effects — fog and kaleidoscopic lights especially — and beautiful period costumes by Mike & Kathy Buck Designs. Greg Bierce's set features a stunning backdrop of London architecture, and convincing antique furniture that rolls onto the bare stage to set a scene or establish an atmosphere. The playing area is too spacious, though, to suggest the Cratchit family's poverty, and the key image of Christmas Future, Scrooge's gravestone, comes across as meager. Eric Davis' direction emphasizes choral numbers and general cheer; this story may not be frightening, but it's decisively a Carol.
"Marley was dead" are the first three words of Dickens' famous story, and death — Marley's, Scrooge's, Tiny Tim's, our own — should hang over this play like a terribly imminent judgment. The freeFall production chooses instead to favor the positive, and the result is a lively pageant that never challenges the Scrooge within us. Still, it's lovely to watch and ultimately joyous in the right way. Haunting? Not really. But rousing and sincere — which is almost as good.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.