A Christmas Carol

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

The Aurora Fox gives a slightly different twist to Charles Dickens’ well-worn, well-loved ghost story of Christmas, A Christmas Carol. Under the direction of Charles Dean Packard, David and Julie Payne have adapted this particular production with music by Marta Yordy with lyrics by Julie Payne and original musical arrangements by Dutch Miller.

Manuel Roybal as the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol at the Aurora Fox.

Family-oriented and family fun, the production features a cast of 30 characters complimented by highly-skilled professional actors working with novices, as well as many levels in between. Because of Packard’s deliberate attention to every scene and every actor, feeding them the food they need, the over-all effect results in a glorious brightly colored portrait of the Christmas spirit.

It’s time for Emily (Cayden Osley) and her little sibling Robbi (Madison Laughlin) to go to bed. Snuggled on a sofa with their Grandfather (Jim Hunt) to the side of the stage, the two children connive to stay up longer. “Tell us a story.” They plead. Robbi wants a scary story, as long as it isn’t too scary, and Emily wants a happy story. Grandfather knows exactly how to wed the two ideas beginning a story he says took place 50 years ago.

Illuminating the theatre, carolers come down both aisles dressed in period costumes singing Hey Ho Nobody Home. The sound of a warm, happy Christmas fills the theatre to the rafters. Light from the carolers’ candles emphasizes the crease of gentle smiles across the audience.

The curtains open to a London scene of busy Christmas shoppers in the midst of their hustling and bustling. In the middle of the stage, hunched over, leaning on a cane, an old man grumbles. No one speaks to him. He speaks to no one. Jack Casperson brings Ebenezer Scrooge to life.

I always hold my breath with productions like this. All too often there is the tendency to water down Scrooge’s temperament “to not scare the children”. Casperson doesn’t water him down. He blows the spirit of life into this lonely, grumpy man, giving him a sense of full humanity with his own sense of humor, delighting children and adults, in the audience, of course. The characters on stage see no humor whatsoever.

With Yordy’s musical director, and Melissa Lucero McCarl’s choreography, the music fits the voices of the large cast and the dances fit the characters’ abilities so no one is doing something beyond their capability.

With costumes designed by Nicole Harrison, additional scenic design and engineering by John Sullivan, sound design by El Armstrong, and lighting design by Jen Orf, the colorful portrait melds all of its parts together.

Josh Robinson takes on Bob Cratchit with honest human treading-on- water careful not to upset the boat, maintaining his own identity demeanor. He neither overplays him nor underplays him. He doesn’t play him for laughs while teasing his own sense of humor. He lets Cratchit be real, and it works.

Although I have a “prejudicial thing” about girls playing girls and boys playing boys (I cling to the thought Peter Pan should be played by a boy instead of a middle aged woman no matter how big the name or talented the actor), Helena Sandvold’s take on Tiny Tim works wonders. She has the spirit, the talent, and her Tiny Tim costume makes her real. She’s thrilled to be in this production, and it shows through Tiny Tim’s own personality instead of her own. No small trick for a young actor. At a young age she already knows the difference between her projection and a character’s, something some adults never learn.

Wrapped in chains and a booming voice that leaves Scrooge shaking in his slippers, Hugo Jon Sayles gives a haunting believable Marley’s Ghost. The special effect of his ghostly body seeping through the door in liquid form works nicely.

Manuel Roybal’s Ghost of Christmas Present demonstrates the spirit of Christmas surrounding Scrooge he cannot feel, or touch.

The addition of Greg Price with his rubber face and comedic specialties adds flavored spice to the entire production with the four characters he portrays, especially with Mr. Fezziwig.

Giovanna Leah’s take on the Ghost of Christmas Past resembles an elfin nymph quality with her simple costume, agile body, and deliberate purpose for the short time allowed with Scrooge. She reflects to the audience his opening up to himself. In some productions this happens too quickly with Scrooge. In the Aurora Fox production, his becoming less Scrooge and more human takes place in a measured believable manner. For personalities to crack their masked persona and the tightly brick wall built up around them takes time to disassemble. Casperson unveils Scrooge carefully, humorously, and honestly throughout the play. At the end when he leaps for joy, the hearts in the audience match his revelation, which is after all, a major point in the story.

Greg Kendall’s silent hooded Ghost of Christmas Future sends chills down the spine where chills tend to go. With the direction Scrooge is headed, the handwriting appears on the wall in predicable script if he doesn’t change his ways. The ghost means business and his silent, hidden faŤade allows for deliberate intention not even Scrooge can miss.

Peppered with carols and original music such as: Good Christian Men Rejoice, God Bless This Day, Christmas Miracles, Silent Night, Deck The Halls, Joy To The World, and God Bless This Day adds spice, flavor, warmth attached to Dicken’s harsh tale of a bitter, angry, unhappy spiteful man losing his human way in the midst of an inhuman maze. Discovering the maze is his own concoction having nothing to do with reality and the true meaning of Christmas that tends to get lost in its own maze of families, people alone, people blessed with many Christmas pasts believing they have no present or future.

All too often we gripe about the “over-doneness” of Christmas Carol, when in truth and fact it can never be over-done, a point well taken, a point needed to be remembered.

The Aurora Fox’s magnificent production mixing highly skilled actors with novices, filling the theatre with tightly sung carols, smoke screening, fun special effects, and a cast who prove they are where they want to be, on that stage, guided by an exquisite technical crew speaks to the valued addition of A Christmas Carol with a delightful twist at the end.

Definitely, a family show, but also a time to think about the extended family including a friend or acquaintance hiding in their home or apartment surrounded by the spirit of Christmas pasts, thinking the spirit of Christmas Present and Future have forgotten them. Here the stage meets the audience right up front where it counts most.