“A Christmas Carol” is a celebration of the holiday season, and the adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic tale that is coming to the Bucks County Playhouse promises to also celebrate theater and New Hope itself.
“Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big Playhouse Christmas Show” is a comedic take on the story of a miser who is shown the way to redemption by ghosts on Christmas Eve. It was written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, and is running at the playhouse, Dec. 8-31.
“It’s a comic version of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ told with five actors playing all of the parts, changing costumes in the blink of an eye, with very minimal sets, but a whole lot of laughs and a big heart,” Rosen says.
Rosen compares the show to the Broadway hit “Peter and the Starcatcher” and its use of “story theater” with cast members providing narration while jumping in and out of their characters.
“One of the fun elements of the show is that it is very much based in the community surrounding the Bucks County Playhouse,” Rosen says. “We’ve done a pretty faithful adaptation, in a funny way, of Dickens’ original story, but we have set it around the turn of last century in the Bucks County area.”
Rosen is familiar with Bucks County Playhouse, having played Nathan Detroit in the theater’s revival of “Guys and Dolls” last summer. One idea that sparked the play, he says, was the song “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and the line, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories from Christmases long long ago.”
“A Christmas Carol” is that scary ghost story. It may be the most classic of Christmas stories, but it also has some genuine frights. Be ready for some nightmares if you read Dickens’ description of Marley’s Ghost shortly before falling sleep. With New Hope being known for its haunted locales — the Logan Inn and the Aaron Burr House, for example — setting the story there made a lot of sense.
“It has both the story of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and an appreciation for the Bucks County Playhouse as a theater, and the sense of community of people coming together this time of year,” Rosen says.
That will add a layer of fun of audiences. For example, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, tells Scrooge that one day, there will be a Dunkin’ Donuts on Main Street.
Rosen and Greenburg wrote the play with New Hope in mind, but the script contains notes as to how it can be adapted to fit other towns.
“We wrote it to be a celebration of the holiday and theaters in communities and the importance of having a theater in your community, and how it’s a meeting place for people to come together and be entertained and watch stories that reflect their own lives,” Rosen says. “That’s certainly one of the things that draws me to the theater. And every community, any place that does this, has a central theater meeting point. I think the idea is the same, so the show can be adapted to be done anywhere.”
Rosen says the idea for the show was Greenburg’s. The two writers are collaborating on an adaptation of the 1987 movie “The Secret of My Success” for the stage. After they finished a draft of that, Greenburg told Rosen his idea for the Scrooge show.
“That day, we started reading ‘A Christmas Carol’ and writing our version of it,” Rosen says. “Our initial idea was to do a version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that could be done in any town in America, where it will both celebrate the holiday spirit, as it were, but also be an appreciation of theater, and the people who make theater, and the idea of community.”
Playing Scrooge is Don Stephenson. He is the only member of the cast who plays just one part. Stephenson’s Broadway credits include “The Producers,” “Dracula,” and “Rock of Ages.” Playing all the other parts are Evan Alexander Smith, Kate Wetherhead, James Ludwig and Tracey Conyer Lee.
“The other four actors in the show play everybody else and I just play Scrooge through the whole show,” Stephenson says. “So they really have to do the heavy lifting.”
Stephenson directed “And the World Goes Round” at Bucks County Playhouse a few years ago, and has previously collaborated with Rosen, Greenburg and director Josh Rose.
“We’ve sort of all worked together in many different capacities,” Stephenson says. “They knew me and I knew them, and I thought the script was really funny, and I thought it had heart to it as well. ‘Christmas Carol,’ if it’s done right, should have a certain kind of poignancy to it. And I thought the script had the poignant and also had the funny, so it seemed like a no-brainer, since I know all the people involved.”
In playing Scrooge, Stephenson wants to get laughs, but it’s also important that the show pulls the emotional strings within the story.
“I think, for all of us in it, we have to tread that line — how far can we go with the funny and then get back to the seriousness of the show because it’s really a ghost story,” Stephenson says. “It can be scary, these three sort of scary ghosts come and take this guy on this examination of his life. It’s very painful, I think, for Scrooge to see what he used to be versus who he is now and how all of that happened. Think if you had to go see the moments of your life you’re least proud of and relive that and see them in you, it probably wouldn’t be too much fun.”
At quick glance, Scrooge can seem like a cartoonish mean man, but Stephenson says there’s more to him than that.
“He really transforms, from one thing to another,” he says. “That’s a fun thing to do as an actor, to change, because that’s what the audience really responds to. We start in one place and change trough the course of the show, and for the audience to witness that change is cathartic. I guess you see a little bit of yourself in all of the characters, particularly Scrooge.”
He adds that in terms of comedy, the other four actors in the cast drive a lot of the humor by playing so many different characters.
“They’re so funny and so creative,” Stephenson says. “They play all of these characters, sometimes they’re standing in one place then flipping around and they’re a completely different person. It’s amazing to watch them.”
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