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Poor Ebenezer Scrooge. In most staged interpretations of A Christmas Carol, he—that “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”—never gets enough credit. After all, the man changes his ways completely, literally overnight, and everyone goes home thinking it’s the ghosts that made him do it. But Charles Dickens’s cautionary tale on the true meaning of Christmas is really Scrooge’s story—as Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s wonderfully fresh renewal of its now 31-year-old holiday tradition makes clear.

If last year’s pearl-anniversary edition was a celebration of what an entire company can achieve with talent and teamwork (and a sizeable budget that begets new sets and special effects), this year’s staging of Carol—director Kyle Hatley’s second at the Rep—hinges on the self-exploration of its main character. As fun as it is as a ghost story, this production is more compelling as psycho-drama; all the smoke, the eerie echoes at each transition, even the rotating London cityscape that follows our curmudgeonly hero’s every move just remind us where this play is really set: inside Scrooge’s head.

It starts, then, with Gary Neal Johnson, whose frequent-Scrooge punch card must be full by now. But this, his tenth appearance as Ebenezer, could be his first, or for that matter his hundredth, so fully does he embody the loveless codger. (I’d only had the honor of seeing his Scrooge once before, last year.) When Scrooge decrees that “solitude is a state of bliss” and “love produces nothing but excess children…and pain,” Johnson is so cold that simply knowing the story’s happy ending is not reason enough to believe it will turn out that way. Even during Act Two’s iconic full-cast rendition of “O Come All Ye Faithful”—beautifully boosted this year by more young vocal talent—all eyes (well, my eyes) were riveted to Johnson, his silent, tormented face more expressive than any song.

One of the recurring joys of this holiday tradition—besides the multi-generational cast (and audience)—is the chance to see some of Kansas City’s best actors in character roles. As Scrooge’s underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit, Walter Coppage makes the touchy-feely most of his limited stage time, and Cheryl Weaver, last seen here as the explosive Barbara in August: Osage County, is equally convincing as the easily flustered Mrs. Cratchit. Jim Gall carries off Mr. Fezziwig, young Scrooge’s benevolent boss, with tipsy charisma, like a 19^th-century Will Ferrell (in my notes, I jotted: “I want to party with Fezziwig”), and again rises (on stilts) as the larger-than-life Ghost of Christmas Present. Charles Fugate, as Dickens, is a no-nonsense narrator.

The Rep’s backstage and technical artists continue to perfect their craft as well. Jeffrey Cady’s lighting and projections lead the effects—the scene in which Scrooge’s front door knocker morphs into the face of Jacob Marley’s ghost (Mark Robbins) is as good as anything you’d see in a movie. Allison Dillard’s costumes set the scene as much as any set piece, from the bitter cold of Victorian London to the warm nostalgia of a Christmas past to the chains of the underworld. Eryn Bates Preston’s music direction also sets the tone throughout, and John Story’s ghostly sound design comes at us from all angles.

As spectacular as the medium might be, the enduring virtue of A Christmas Carol is still its message. The picture it paints of the gap between those who possess more than they have earned and those who have earned more than they possess could not be more relevant today. Scrooge is the one percent! Occupy London! The word “enough” is repeated as a mantra throughout Barbara Field’s adapted script, whether in reference to the Cratchits’ meager but fulfilling Christmas feast or to Scrooge, a man who thinks he has everything, yet has nothing but himself. Scrooge’s transformation is his realization that solitude is not enough. He must participate in life.

It is in Scrooge’s story, then, that the true message is found: that all one-hundred percent of us are meant to live together, and the sooner we realize it, the better for us all. Or as Tiny Tim famously puts it, “God bless us, every one.”

REVIEW:
Kansas City Repertory Theatre
A Christmas Carol
Runs November 19–December 26, 2011 (Reviewed Wednesday, November 30)
UMKC’s Spencer Theatre
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org

Top Photo: Jim Gall at the Ghost of Christmas Present in KC Rep's A Christmas Carol (Photo by Don Ipock)

By Victor Wishna

Senior Editor, Theatre; Theatre and Features Contributor
Victor Wishna is a writer, editor, and author, among other things. A graduate of Stanford University and the New School's creative writing MFA program, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, Humanities, and other major magazines and newspapers. He contributes a weekly real estate feature to the New York Post and his column “Letter from New York” is syndicated nationally.

With photographer Ken Collins, he published In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights (Umbrage Editions, 2006), for which he conducted and edited interviews with 61 prominent stage writers including Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, Wendy Wasserstein, and many others. The book won a 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal (www.intheircompany.com).

He has always maintained a love for theatre, as a writer, an audience member, and even an actor, appearing in several community and semi-professional productions. As an undergraduate, he studied acting and playwriting with Anna Deavere Smith, in addition to journalism and psychology (and not engineering or medicine).

After nearly 12 years in New York City, Victor recently returned to his hometown with his wife, Annie, also a K.C. native. When not writing for publication or pleasure, Victor is honing his stand-up routine, which he has performed at numerous clubs and special events around New York, the Midwest, and elsewhere. In June 2010, he was named New York’s second-funniest amateur Jewish comedian by The Jewish Week. Seriously.

Comments(1):

1. Christmas Carol

   This is an intelligent, beautifully written review. Thank you. I saw it in previews and thought The Christmas Carol was very well done and something KC should be very proud of.

   Wednesday, December 07, 2011 Jon M