The ensemble (Photo by Craig Schwartz)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
A Noise Within
Through Dec. 24
RECOMMENDED
Few works of literature inspire as keen a sense of nostalgia for in me as A Christmas Carol, a novel I reread on almost a yearly basis. Over the decades, the story has been adapted for the stage and screen more times than can easily be counted. (I must confess that, as soon as the Thanksgiving guests departed and the last dish was washed, I rewatched the 1951 film starring Alastair Sim, the first of many screen iterations I will revisit over the holidays.)
I first saw A Noise Within’s A Christmas Carol two years ago, with Geoff Elliott starring as Scrooge, a role he has undertaken since the production’s inception 13 years ago. Adapted by Elliott and co-directed by him and his wife and fellow company founder, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, Dickens’s Christmas classic has become a beloved seasonal offering at ANW. And while the version I saw two years ago was a perfectly pleasant and workmanlike diversion, it didn’t quite pique the requisite nostalgia by which I judge any Carol.
Yet somehow, in this particular year and this particular production, there has been an almost alchemical transmutation of the workmanlike into the transcendent. Rousing and moving, it will lift your spirits and put you in a properly celebratory mood.
The show is subtly tweaked on a yearly basis to keep things fresh. This year’s introduction of Nick Santiago’s excellent projections design — flickering images of snow falling on St. Paul’s, dismal rain soaking London slums — is a case in point. The long-established design elements — Ken Booth’s lighting, Angela Balogh Calin’s costumes, and Jeanine A. Ringer’s scenic concept — remain as durably delightful as ever.
That most magical transformation, however, is Elliott’s Scrooge, the miserly misanthrope who undergoes his own transformation from a “grasping, covetous sinner” to a reformed soul who honors Christmas in his heart all the year. Elliott, who alternates in the role with Henri Lubatti, invests Scrooge with a hint of a twinkle under his curmudgeonly scowl, reinvigorating the character he has played for so many years and finding new opportunities for humor and pathos in a performance that may be broad but never descends to caricature.
The fact that Elliott’s adaptation doesn’t change a word of the source material appeals to the purist in me, for whom every line of the novel is deeply embedded in my DNA. Granted, sound designer Robert Oriol, who also composed the original music, departs from the text with the witty musical numbers that punctuate the proceedings, but otherwise the dialogue is pristinely Dickens. A Narrator (excellent Alison Rodriguez, daughter of Elliott and Elliott-Rodriguez, who proves that theatrical know-how may be hereditary) “reads” passages from the novel — a crucial component that captures the sweep of Dickens’s tale.
Also novel is Kasey Mahaffy’s Bob Cratchit. The comic force behind ANW’s recent One Man, Two Guvnors, Mahaffy abjures the pale and abject characterization so typical of the role. His Cratchit is ruddy, robust and boldly Cockney, a tack that takes some getting used to but ultimately works beautifully.
While the adaptation is truthful to the original, certain characters depart markedly from it, most notably Riley Shanahan’s lean and youthful Fezziwig, a far cry from Dickens’s rotund and jovial creation. However, Shanahan, excellent as Marley’s Ghost and Old Joe, was obviously jobbed in for the role because there was simply no one of that particular vintage and heft in the cast, so it’s an understandable makeshift.
Instead of Dickens’s luminous androgyne, The Ghost of Christmas is imaginatively personified as a twirling, tulle-clad ballerina in a top hat. Trisha Miller, who has played the role over several seasons, is once again a delight.
The Ghost of Christmas Present (Anthony Adu), the spirit of plenty who sits atop a mound of provender, is cleverly addressed by placing Adu atop a movable tower over which his Christmasy costume cascades. The intermission that comes in the middle of his scene seems a bit arbitrary — until we realize it provides the opportunity to plant the ghastly waifs of Ignorance and Want under his robes instead of keeping the child actors immured, claustrophobically, for longer.
The penultimate scene, in which Scrooge invites Cratchit to join him in a bowl of “smoking bishop” (instead of the substituting the words “hot punch” as in most adaptations) speaks to the literary rigor of this production. That tiny but telling detail is typical of this rigorously realized entertainment, which may well inspire you to honor Christmas — and Dickens — in your heart all the year long.
A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. Thurs.-Sat, 7 pm, Sat.-Sun., 2 pm, Tues.-Wed., Dec. 23-24, 2 pm, Tues., Dec. 23, 7 pm; thru Dec. 24. www.anoisewithin.org 1 hour and 50 minutes with an intermission.
