A Chicago Christmas Carol
CROWN CITY THEATRE COMPANY
PRODUCES ANOTHER FINE PRODUCTION,
RE-TELLING THE OLD STORY ABOUT
A GREEDY MAN AND HIS LACK OF CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.
At the Crown City Theatre in North Hollywood.
In this current-to-the-times alteration of Dickens's enduring holiday favorite, it makes perfect sense to set the story in the cold streets of Chicago during the time of the meatpacking crisis.
Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Sinclair's "The Jungle," a best-selling novel about the meatpacking industry in the early 1900s, inspired the setting in which this retelling takes place.
Scrooge is still the grumpy old man we always remember, played imperiously by Michael Vodde. On Christmas Eve, the townspeople are being ejected from their homes due to Mr. Scrooge's perennial cupidity. Joanne McGee plays the endearing Maria Jessup, who is victimized, along with her young, fatherless daughter, by the old man's eviction process. When Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Past, Present, and Future, he witnesses for himself how his decisions affect everyone around him, including his assistant Bob Cratchit, his deceased sister's son, and Isabella Fezziwig, the love of his life and daughter of the man he swindled to make his fortune. In the end, Mr. Scrooge lusts to make things right and, upon receiving his chance, offers Maria Jessup and her daughter the opportunity to live with him, and declares everyone be admitted back into their homes for Christmas Day.
Director Tam Warner moves these characters ever-so-delicately in and out, around and through, without missing a moment of our attention. Sometimes you can't help to wonder if some simple decisions were made by the director or the actor; but either way, Warner gets the credit for the tiny moments that work extremely well, only because if they didn't work well, well.......
Joanne McGee, Chris Shepardson, and Bill Bookston are the highlights of this production. McGee continues to impress with her absolutely realistic portrayal of Maria, keeping her daughter safe from the cold, nearly losing her to the bitterness of the plot. Shepardson, playing multiple roles, as most of the cast do, keeps his comedic pacing swift, with his excellent comic expressions tamed. Bookston is the comic relief, in my opinion. He's one of those actors who walks onstage and instantly receives a warm welcome for his enticing, and splendidly entertaining persona.
Set Designer Dean Cameron discreetly sets the tone with an early 1900s Chicago-style section of neighborhood located underneath the L-train. Caitlin Erin O'Hare has probably been catching up on her sleep following the long, grueling task of perfecting the characters' costumes, which were marvelous and fun. Gary Lamb's lyrics coddle to this production like fleece, while William Reilly's book holds our hands and warms our hearts till the blissful end. The music, however, as entertaining as it was, was missing that old-fashioned sound of silver bells, which we recognize in almost all Christmas music. The production, however, concentrated on the times (in the style of Bertolt Brecht and "reminiscent of Kurt Weill").
And my side note......
At the end of the show, before sweet little Christina Jessup (Shannon Lamb) states, "God, bless us, everyone," Scrooge happily shouts, "Merry Christmas!" and no one responds to him as they stand to his right, perplexed. If the three characters standing behind him had offered back the same sentiment, the ending would have been more exciting.
On a Grading Scale: A