Dickens’ holiday classic kicks off season of celebration

Jerry Hoffman

Scenes of warmth, cheer, and holiday spirit filled the Warriner Auditorium Wednesday when Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” took the stage, filling the air with Christmas cheer.
The mostly filled auditorium audience was packed with adults and their children set to enjoy the performance by Troupe America.
The motley arrangement of actors all worked together in harmony to produce the many different characters that this play required, going through costume changes to take on their different personas.
The play featured Peter Colburn as Ebenezer Scrooge; Jeffery Wolf as Bob Cratchit, Squeezebox, and Fezziwig; Ellen Halstead as Mrs. Cratchit, Flower Lady, and Violet Fezziwig; Marcie Passley as Belle and Martha Cratchit; Michael Hobot as Peter Cratchit, Dick Wilkins, and Schoolboy; Michelle Hakala as Belinda Cratchit and Spirit Past, Frank Thompson as Tiny Tim, Urchin, Schoolboy, and Ignorance; Bill Bland as Spirit Present, Grave Robber, and Schoolmaster; Arnie Roos as Marley and Undertaker, among others who made this play complete.
The stage housed a set of phenomenal proportions, featuring three facade houses, which would later open to show various settings for later scenes in the play, including the Cratchit’s home, and Scrooge’s spooky bedchamber.
The show started off with a party scene and members of the cast were in the audience making phony intorductions of audience members as guests to the party. This proved to be a funny scene involving puns and knee-slapping kind of jokes followed by uproarious laughter from the cast on stage. From there, the play only continued to make its way up to one of the best productions of “A Christmas Carol” ever.
The hilarious scenes continued with the villagers tormenting Scrooge by wishing him a merry Christmas, along with his nephew trying to bring him good cheer. It is to no avail, of course, and Scrooge continues to be his old grumpy self.
However, when Scrooger returned to his bedchamber is where all similarities between this production and all the other ones ended. The first surprise of the night was the Ghost of Jacob Marley. Instead of a regular enterance from stage right of left, his hand bursat through the matress on Scrooge’s bed, and he climbed out wailing and moaning complete with his chain of greed that he forged through his life. The intensity of this scene was unequaled by any other production, and most likely caused som nightmares for the younger members of the audience.
The Spirit Past was a small nymph who sprang lightly around the stage, showing Scrooge what his past Christmases had been like. After she disappeared into the intermission, the second act started off with Scrooge hiding under his bed, and the Spirit Present appearing in a Santa-like suit complete with a booming voice, and a torch staff. This spirit showed the traditional scenes of the Cratchits dining on their turkey, and Scrooge’s nephew’s dinner party. The Spirit Future was represented by a skull-like head that appeared over Scrooge’s bed, and showed him the grave robbers digging up his worldy treasures and selling them at bargain prices.
Overall, the play was one of the best representations of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in recent memory. The theatrical effects that the play employed heightened the sensation of the spirits as they visited Scrooge on his road to conversion. The play left off with a feel-good atmoshphere that is sure to stick in the hearts and minds of many audience members.