"A CHRISTMAS CAROL" at Goodman Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
Audiences accustomed to making their annual Yuletide pilgrimage to Goodman Theatre’s "A Christmas Carol" will find themselves at long last engulfed in an intimate yet full-bodied story of human redemption. With Kate Buckley – one of our city’s most astute directorial treasures – staging the Charles Dickens’ perennial at Goodman for the first time, the clutter of special effects and children’s theater affection has given way to the magic of Dickens’ words spoken with honesty and grace.
I have been attending this holiday tradition in Chicago since the age of 12. By the twentieth or so production, I felt – as would be expected of a show flitting around and squealing tidings of good cheer – pretty jaded and exhausted. "A Christmas Carol," sadly, grew into as much of an obligation as visiting one’s least favorite relatives (although, in all fairness, past productions have included some outstanding performances). But something extraordinary happened to me during this 25th anniversary staging, directed by Buckley. It truly rang with unforced eternal truths. I found myself weeping at the end – fortified by the indomitable strength of the story.
In fact, this is such a mature and sophisticated production, it could be performed any time of the year – very much like Shakespeare’s "Lear." And how apropos that Buckley has tapped into Ebenezer Scrooge’s nephew Fred’s eerily pivotal remark that we are "fellow passengers to the grave." Time, with whispering menace, becomes the director’s brilliant through-line – culminating in set designer Todd Rosenthal’s looming recreation of Lorado Taft’s shrouded "Night" sculpture as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
The miserly "Bah, humbug!"-spewing Scrooge must travel through time to reclaim his future – a future only he can forge (as illustrated by the silent ghost of things unknown). And as he journeys through the perils of his childhood into the self-imposed disappointments of his young manhood and comes face-to-face with his compliant employer Bob Cratchit’s devastating challenges, Scrooge is granted a second chance at achieving happiness through sincere generosity.
Buckley, not one to shy away from the bleaker aspects of drama, never sugar-coats Scrooge’s chilling epiphanies – especially in the graveyard, where he refuses to peer under the sheets to gaze at his own corpse. At the same time, she understands the power of humor within the horrors. So Scrooge becomes not a crouching cartoon of a curmudgeon but a real human being deeply – almost irreparably – damaged by the social forces around him and his lifelong layering of cold defense mechanisms.
Casting a huskier actor, like the quietly magnificent William Brown as Scrooge, is one of Buckley’s grandest achievements. In Brown, she has found an artist who embodies the character’s profound pathos buried under a calcified facade. Brown has succeeded at not turning Scrooge into a mincing character role, or caricature. His Scrooge is quite centered and convinced that his choices have enabled him to survive in a brutal world. His booming voice – which can eke laughs out of a rich crescendo of "Good Afternoon" to individuals collecting money for the poor – hides an insecure, regretful and lonely man.
Brown also understands the protagonist’s self-protective sense of denial and delusions of grandeur – especially when he puffs up his chest only to hear Mrs. Cratchit’s accusatory toast to him. His pettiness surfaces when he chastises little Emily Cratchit by sniffing, "The silly girl spoiled it," after she gave away the surprise of her sister Martha hiding under the table. Brown even draws laughs from the grand guignol scene with Marley’s Ghost. "You needn’t be so flowery," he wryly chides his former business partner, who drags around the chains he forged his life…cash box by cash box.
Thankfully, audiences do not have to endure Scrooge flying through the air with the Ghost of Christmas Past or hopping aboard the Ghost of Christmas Present’s cornucopia float. Instead the stage is engulfed in lighting designer Robert Christen’s ashen, "Sweeney Todd"-like hues. You could almost taste the soot of Industrial Revolution-era England. Heidi Sue McMath’s period-rich costumes are also graciously toned down – allowing Dickens’ heartbreaking and hopeful words to light our souls.
In addition, Buckley has refined the casting of multiple roles in more logical and metaphorically significant terms, with a serene and stalwart Lisa Dodson portraying the Ghost of Christmas past and Mrs. Cratchit; a spectacularly understated Daniel Allar as Mr. Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present; and the grounded yet delicate Barbara Zahora as Scrooge’s ex-fiancee Belle and Fred’s understanding wife Abby.
Other exquisite performances are delivered by Kevin Theis as Scrooge’s unannoyingly optimistic nephew Fred; William J. Norris as the non-mugging Marley and wonderfully dour Undertaker; Sharon Sachs as the jolly and devoted Mrs. Fezziwig; and an impressive, non-hammy turn by Allen Alvarado as Tiny Tim.
This is a solid and tightly focused production. The story does not get lost in spectacle. And, in the process, Buckley has elicited the heart of the somber yet hopeful tale of a man who once wished to drive a stake of holly through the hearts of Christmas revelers. Scrooge, like us all, fears death more than anything. And "A Christmas Carol" really asks us all to assess our own lives within our inevitably limited life spans.•
"A Christmas Carol" runs through December 28 at Goodman Theatre (Albert Ivar Mainstage), 170 N. Dearborn. Tickets: $20-$50. Call 312-443-3800 or log onto www.goodman-theatre.org.
