AnthonyTaufa, ValerieBader, JayJames-Moody, JohnBell, EmilyMcKnight and Daryl Wallis. Photo: Jaimi Joy
Presented almost like home theatre, such as Charles Dickens might have staged in his own house back in the 19th century day, this version of A Christmas Carol gets its social messaging across as lightly as a sprinkle of fairy dust atop a Christmas tree. The style is somewhere between Victorian vaudeville and small-scale panto, with the six-strong cast dressed in a ragbag of costumes – only John Bell as Ebenezer Scrooge is austere in dark suit and tie.
Borrowing from Nicholas Nickleby, the family of performers on stage to welcome the audience to their seats and rouse them into festive song are Mr and Mrs Crummle (John Bell and Valerie Bader) and their daughter, ‘The Infant Phenomenon’ (Emily McKnight). They are aided and abetted in this welcome, and rounds of musical chairs, by Mr Snevellicici (musical director Daryl Wallis) on the piano, Jay James-Moody as actor Mr Folair and Anthony Taufa as the flamboyant Mr Lenville.
The jollity fades, the lights darken and in comes Bell again – Ebenezer Scrooge, personified – and James-Moody as the downtrodden Bob Cratchit.
Taufa soon reappears as Fred, Scrooge’s unwanted and rejected nephew and then, as the tale progresses, as the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s onetime business partner. With the exception of Bell and Wallis, the cast all have multiple roles and it’s not long before we meet Bader as Mrs Cratchit, together with her frail son, Tiny Tim. And what a scene-stealer he is. A small, doleful-faced puppet, deftly manipulated by McKnight, he (and she) conveys all the sadness, kindness and tragedy that Dickens could have wished for.
A Christmas Carol is so well-known, so often performed, that it seems unnecessary to say that Scrooge will soon be haunted by visitations of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas To Come, and eventually shocked into changing his misanthropic, miserly ways.
This production cleverly interposes Dickens’ prose into the action and is in itself, a family affair. Playwright Hilary Bell’s playful, but still sharply resonant, adaptation was written with her father John in mind as Scrooge. Of course, as we would expect from such a seasoned talent as Bell, he embodies the character. To see him, besuited on stage grimly declaring that Tiny Tim’s health, ‘Is not my problem’; showing himself impervious to the poor and homeless, ‘I don’t believe in handouts’, is to be reminded of some of our less-loved politicians and media tycoons espousing similar sentiments. Dickens’ message about the urgent need for social reform, penned in 1843, is as relevant as ever. Humans are slow learners.
This show is directed by Damien Ryan, better known as founder/artistic director of Sport for Jove. It has a fluid energy about it, almost at times as if the actors are improvising, and enjoying that. Engaging from the get-go, it doesn’t rely on special effects (difficult on a stage as small as the Ensemble’s, which is not to denigrate Ailsa Paterson’s set with its trapdoor, ‘magic’ box and simple but effective use of mirrors and curtains, nor Matt Cox’s lighting, which cleverly evokes music hall, the cold and darkness of English winter nights and hints of the supernatural). Music and song are integral. ‘You can’t receive love, if you don’t give love,’ sings McKnight more than once; Wallis and his piano are on stage throughout.
This adaptation of A Christmas Carol, joyful as it often is, is also a stark reminder that, like Scrooge, we all have choices in how we behave to others, and especially to those less fortunate than ourselves
A show for all the family (recommended for children from age 8+), A Christmas Carol runs until 29 December.
Tickets: from $38-$80. https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/a-christmas-carol/
