The Hanover Theatre’s A Christmas Carol:
Well, it was interesting. I learned a lot about The Hanover Theatre from the people sitting behind me and dad, who told us some of the story. Evidently, the theatre was very old, had fallen on hard times, and had been converted into a four-screen cinema at some point decades ago (you know those little hole-in-the-wall urban cinemas). The grand staircase and some stunning chandeliers were all found “behind plywood” when the renovation started and the workers began tearing down walls. It cost $33 million, but the place is an absolute showcase now. You can see photos on the website, but they hardly do it justice. They have dozens of ushers and staff, everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful, and for this show, a group of carolers were singing in the lobby as the audience came in. The newly renovated theatre only opened this past March.
The Executive Director, Troy Siebels, came onstage and gave a little welcome speech in which he talked about this being the first show the Hanover Theatre had developed on its own, as opposed to bringing in a touring show (which they also do). It features local actors, almost all of them Equity but there are a few adult exceptions, and the cast includes a number of children. Some of them, like the ten-year-old who plays The Ghost of Christmas Past (Lexi Ryan), are awesomely talented. The actor who plays Scrooge, Dale Place, has pretty much made a career out of playing that role. But this is an original adaptation of A Christmas Carol, credited entirely to Mr. Siebels, and I’m not sure they made the best choices they could have in all cases.
The show itself is sort of an amalgamation of a play and The Christmas Revels. The dramatic action is interspersed with musical numbers featuring Christmas carols and songs with period dance. These are well done and harmonize with the storyline. But another stylistic choice is less effective. The script is quite faithful to Dickens, with a number of minor extra elements I recognized as being borrowed from various film versions. But rather than have the entire story play out in dialogue and action by the characters, Mr. Siebels employs heavy use of expository narration given by different actors. In effect, the show is a group reading of the book with scenes played out by the characters. Now, I can see this being done in a very limited way, but in this show it doesn’t really work well. For one thing, it necessitates half a dozen or more actors being onstage describing scenes (such as between Scrooge and the spirits) whose whole impact depends on Scrooge being alone when the events happen. It also tends to make many scenes way too busy.
Fiction writers all know the dictum, “show, don’t tell.” You would certainly expect that to be even more important in a dramatization than in prose! But The Hanover Theatre’s A Christmas Carol does far too much telling when it should just let the actors show us. Moreover, when a narrator does take such a strong role, I don’t think it should ever be more than one person. I love the Jim Henson series, The Storyteller, with John Hurt, which also combines narration and scenes with actors. But having almost all the supporting cast double as a “Greek Chorus” ends up being a bit confusing and distracting, rather than making the story clearer as is obviously the intention.
There were also some sound glitches during yesterday’s matinee. All the actors wore wireless mics, and about a dozen times an actor’s mic wasn’t on when he or she first started speaking. The special effects and set design are extremely impressive, especially the richly detailed sets, which are opened up and turned around by actors to change scenes and are very cleverly designed. But several scenes utilize a fog machine whose smoke made sensitive folks in the audience cough. Marley’s Ghost comes flying in on a wire, and they have the scariest Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come that I’ve ever seen.
The timing and pacing of the script is a bit off, with not nearly enough suspense being allowed to build before Marley’s Ghost appears, and way too much time before The Ghost of Christmas Past shows up. (Not a mistake, there were actors onstage describing Scrooge’s feelings and thoughts as he sat on his four-poster bed and mimed them.) I thought Siebels spends a little too much time–both length and pacing–on the opening set-up scenes, showing us what an s.o.b. Scrooge is, to the detriment of later scenes.
Everyone has their own favorite dramatized A Christmas Carol and their own favorite Scrooge. Dale Place was fine as Scrooge. Bob Cratchit was played a bit more sniveling than I like–reminiscent of Timothy Spall’s Wormtail in the HP movies–but that’s common for actors playing Cratchit. One of the numerous reasons that I like my favorite movie version of A Christmas Carol is because David Warner’s Bob Cratchit is played as a dignified, responsible adult who has to cope with the Boss From Hell, and as such is very affecting as a struggling husband and father. That interpretation of the role is the exception rather than the rule. The cast, as a whole, are all very good.
All my criticisms are minor quibbles, really. If you’re in the Worcester area and would like to see this show, the last performance is tomorrow night, and I’ll bet they have tickets. The house wasn’t nearly full for yesterday’s matinee.
