A Christmas Carol

On a bleak, dark stage cold with flurries of snow, Ebenezer Scrooge hunches over his desk, endlessly checking his riches. Behind him, Bob Crachit waits quietly for the end of another day. The silent, empty stage and the two lonely figures are a stark introduction to this new adaptation of Dickens’ time-honoured tale.

Written by Benedict Hardie and director Anne-Louise Sarks, it goes beyond the miserly “caricature and cliché of Scrooge … to the unbridled joy of his awakening” (Sarks). The scariness is there, mainly suggested by very spooky sound design (Steffan Gregory), eerie lighting (Benjamin Cisterne), a couple of freaky spectres and a lot of trapdoors, but this is lifted by warmth and humour and the miracle of Scrooge’s second chance.

Many characters haunt Scrooge’s troubled Christmas Eve, but it is Robert Menzies who makes Scrooge come to 21^st century life. His (pre-Christmas) Scrooge is haggard, impatient and bitter. Using all the power of his long-limbed litheness, his strong, echoing voice and flexible facial expressions, Menzies manages to evoke the emptiness of a character so hard and unyielding to the needs of others and the offers of goodwill around him.

Yet, as he is led through the visions that will change his life – and the people who care about him despite his ways – he reveals the person he once was and could become again. There are tears and groans of pain as the real Scrooge emerges and finds joy again. It is a very moving portrayal.

The adaptation concentrates more on love and good humour than fear and threat. Well, except for the ghost of Jacob Marley. Peter Carroll makes a pretty scary Marley, rising from a trapdoor, thin and white, with wraith-like hair, to warn Scrooge in hollow, echoing notes of the fate that awaits him if he doesn’t mend his ways.  And the ghost of Christmas-to-come, a tall, silent, shadowy figure that appears out of nowhere lit by a white light and hazy smoke is pretty freaky too.

Thankfully Carroll appears a little later as less frightening characters, including the jolly merchant, Fezziwig, Scrooge’s first employer and the lovable, hard-of-hearing Cratchit grandfather.

Carroll, Kate Box, Ivan Donato, Eden Falk, Steve Rogers, Miranda Tapsell and Ursula Yovich depict all of the characters, past and present, who bring about Scrooge’s transformation. There are many costume changes and many small props to be managed by the back stage crew (Edwina Guinness and Sarah Stait).

Ivan Donato is the cold and calculating ghost of Christmas past, leading Scrooge to memories of his sister, his happy early working days, the fiancée he neglected and the life he might have had with her.

Kate Box is exceptional as Christmas present. Decked as a gold Christmas tree, she is light and happy, guiding Scrooge from the Crachits’ to the home of his nephew Fred (Eden Falk), helping herself to tidbits of Christmas fare along the way. The writers have created a lovely character, and Box is perfect in this role and as a Salvation Army collector, a nurse and Scrooge’s one-time fiancée Belle.

As Bob Cratchit, Steve Rogers is hesitant and subservient with Scrooge, loving and expansive with his family. His gentleness with his wife (Ursula Yovich) and Tiny Tim (Miranda Tapsell) is heart warming and brings out all of the compassion that Dickens begged for the poor and needy. Rogers is also quite gorgeous as a Christmas Tree! What an imaginative piece of direction!

Michael Hankins’ set is minimalist in the extreme but its very starkness and the use of multiple entries and trapdoors gives Sarks the opportunity to move her characters from dream to reality quickly and effectively.

This is a very truthful adaptation that is pushes all the emotional buttons. Sarks’ direction captures her real feeling for the “the most powerful, dark, charming, heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting story I know”.

Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Brett Boardman