What in the Dickens? Change “A Christmas Carol” after 15 years?
Actually it’s what’s in the Dickens, or at least in his 1843 novel, that motivated new Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director Kent Thompson to make the switch this year to a 1986 adaptation penned by Richard Hellesen.
“What distinguishes this particular version is that it has retained a lot of the original Dickens narration, which is then put directly into the mouths of the actors,” said director Bruce K. Sevy, who twice directed Hellesen’s adaptation for Thompson’s Alabama Shakespeare Festival. “Dickens’ language informs the style of the piece and keeps us grounded in 1843.”
Since 1990, up to 30,000 people have flocked to the DCTC each December to see the adaptation by Laird Williamson and Dennis Power, making it by far the most-attended production of every season.
Audiences this year will notice a new scenic design showing the streets, shops and homes of Victorian London; many new costumes; and original music and period carols by David de Berry. Sevy says the overall result is somehow grittier and more lyrical.
“I think it is a different experience, and much of that is dictated by the music that’s been composed for this version,” Sevy said. “Practically the whole thing is either underscored or breaks into outright singing. So the music lifts the piece.”
But Hellesen’s book, he adds, more realistically reflects the Industrial Revolution, when poor, agrarian people were moving in hordes into an already overcrowded city.
“Without being heavyhanded, the writers have kept a lot of Dickens’ commentary on the economic realities and social ills of the time, including unemployment, poverty and living on the edge of bankruptcy,” Sevy said.
Randy Moore, who has twice played the story’s famous curmudgeon for the DCTC, said audiences also will see a new Ebenezer Scrooge.
“First of all, he looks different,” said Moore, who alternates with Alabama veteran Philip Pleasants. “Before, Scrooge was a miser whose clothes were tattered and old. He wore knee pants from another time. Now, he’s a rich gentleman. He’s dressed well, and current to his age. Which makes sense. If he were going down to the stock exchange every day, he couldn’t go in ratty clothes.”
There are other distinctions. For one thing, the snow that inevitably falls comes from an entirely new technology. “Up close, it’s like foam bubbles, but from any distance it looks remarkably like real, wet snow,” said Moore. “And when it hits the ground, it simply evaporates. It is amazing.”
The one thing that remains the same is the fundamental story of a cruel and crusty man guided by ghosts through his past, present and future.
“The journey of redemption is not different,” Moore said, “it is enhanced.” He cited new scenes from the novel such as Scrooge seeing childhood sweetheart Belle as a happily married mother. “And that just puts the nail in him that much more.”
That is not to say the performances by Moore and Pleasants are interchangeable. Sevy said audiences who see both will see completely different interpretations.
“I have encouraged them both to find their own Scrooge,” Sevy said. “What they have in common is that they both find the humor and the pathos of the journey, but the way there is very distinctive for each of them.”
The majority of the cast, both adults and children, have performed in previous DCTC stagings of “A Christmas Carol,” which Moore said has brought a new energy to the creative process. “It’s considerably fresher for everyone,” he said.
But it does have its difficulties. “In all, I have been in five different productions of this story, and at times, old lines still want to pop out,” Moore said. “We’ve been laughing about it in rehearsal.”
The 31-person cast is down from a high of 41 two years ago, but Sevy said the sense of authentic 19th-century theatricality remains intact. “The tradition at that time was for these huge performances in terms of size and scale,” Sevy said. “Dickens was a big theater fan, and I think part of the reason so many of his novels have been turned into effective theater is because he writes to a certain size.”
For those audiences debating whether they really need another cardiac defrost, Sevy sees both personal and political reasons to give it a try.
“First, I think the story effectively awakens certain things inside of us that are good values,” he said. “It’s centered around Christmas, but I think even greater than that, it asks what our values are in terms of how we relate to each other as human beings on the same planet.
“I think how we reconcile our values of generosity and charity and goodwill toward men in a capitalist society divided by those people who make money and those who don’t is a question that is still with us, and that resonates in this piece.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“A Christmas Carol”
MUSICAL | Denver Center Theatre Company | Adapted by Richard Hellesen
from Charles Dickens’ novel (music by David de Berry) | Directed by Bruce K.
Sevy | Starring Randy Moore, alternating with Philip Pleasants | Stage Theater,
Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets | THROUGH DEC.
24 | 6:30 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays;
1:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Dec. 21 and 23 performances are 5 p.m.
and 8:30 p.m.; Dec. 24 at 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. | $38-$50 | 303-893-4100,
866-464-2626, denvercenter.org, ticketswest | Note: No children under 6 allowed.
