Center Rep's 'Christmas Carol' feels like hearing the story for the first time
The ensemble of Center Rep's "A Christmas Carol." (Kevin Berne/Center Repertory Company)
Some stories seem to precede memory. You can't pinpoint when you learned them, but you can recite each plot point or line of dialogue as surely as you can tap out your heartbeat.
With "A Christmas Carol," all that familiarity sometimes comes at the cost of suspense and surprise. Everyone knows what's going to happen to money-grubbing Ebenezer Scrooge, so actors just go through the motions, like they're reenacting the same passion play in a church basement every year.
Michael Ray Wisely, left, as Ebenezer Scrooge and Brayden K, Sinkay as Tim in "A Christmas Carol." (Kevin Berne/Center Repertory Company)
That's what makes Center Repertory Company's new adaptation of the show, which opened Friday, Dec. 12, at the Lesher Center for the Arts, such a pleasure. Yes, acting still sometimes looks set on a prescribed track, those supposedly big surprises just par for the course, and transitions and line pickups dither. But among this production's chief delights is its defamiliarization.
Harrison David Rivers' script puts Tim Cratchit (Brayden K. Sinkay, who alternates in the role with Annie Joan Dooling) at the forefront of the story, finding a place for him in many scenes. The result is a version that takes what might be called faithful liberties. They're bold and jaunty, but they're true to the spirit of Charles Dickens' novella. The changes nudge you to lean in and listen anew to words you've heard umpteen times before, but emotionally they still feel just right.
Brayden K. Sinkay, left, and Danny J. Gomez in "A Christmas Carol." (Kevin Berne/Center Repertory Company)
A master stroke of the production, directed by Jared Mezzocchi, is to partner with Axis Dance, which specializes in using disabled and non-disabled dancers. On opening night, four performers - not just Sinkay as Tim - used wheelchairs. No other show in recent Bay Area memory has made having a disability look so normal, an approach that amounts to one of the most openhearted and genuinely Christmasy acts a work of art can take.
Subtler choices make their mark, too. As an infuriated Scrooge (Michael Ray Wisely) raises his hand to strike the Ghost of Christmas Past (Hyacinth Taylor), ensemble members all brace and recoil, then freeze as Tim appears. Scrooge had just seen the boy earlier that day, when he asked, "Do you have a favorite carol, Mr. Scrooge?"
Michael Ray Wisely, left, as Ebenezer Scrooge and Jomar Tagatac as Bob Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol." (Kevin Berne/Center Repertory Company)
Back then Scrooge seethed with self-importance and the potential for violence, but as Tim repeats the question later, the man softens. Scrooge has now just seen himself as a boy (Keenan Moran) yearning for parental love, then as a young man (Jed Parsario) yearning for romantic love. Maybe he's suddenly seeing the innocent child in everyone. Maybe recognizing a present-tense face grounds him after he's been time-travelling with a ghost. Either way, the moment that appears nowhere in Dickens helps pave the way for Scrooge's great transformation.
Other illuminations come from double-casting. Taylor plays both the Ghost of Christmas Past and Fan, Scrooge's sister who died young. Skyler Sullivan takes on all the jolly characters: Scrooge's nephew Fred, past employer Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present. Jomar Tagatac tackles both the long-suffering Bob Cratchit and the Ghost of Jacob Marley. In all these cases, it's as if Scrooge has already been haunted by ghosts his whole life, not just on this doozie of a Christmas Eve. The gesture makes for a clever invitation: Who in your life has long been trying to give you a message, if you'd only listen?
Michael Ray Wisely as Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol." (Kevin Berne/Center Repertory Company)
Meanwhile, stage magic abounds. In Nina Ball's set design, disembodied windows hang at various depths, bidding your imagination to fill in the rest of the Victorian London cityscape. Kurt Landisman's lighting design makes stunning use of flashlights. Crisscrossing beams from various corners of the stage don't just make the Ghost of Christmas Future (Danny J Gomez) materialize from the shadows; as they all rotate from one point to another in sync, it's as if he's so powerful he can direct your gaze. Projections of balls of light, by Camilla Tassi, make Scrooge, at the happiest moment of his life, look like he's floating inside a flute of champagne.
But for all this technical razzle-dazzle, one of the most effective bits of staging might be an analog one. When Marley first appears, he emerges out of the zombie arms and legs of the ensemble; when he returns to the grave, those same appendages clamp over him one by one, like he's dying all over again. Marley's not an aberration, the choice implies. The world produced him, and there are many others like him - maybe you, if you're not careful.
More Information
"A Christmas Carol": Adapted by Harrison David Rivers from Charles Dickens. Directed by Jared Mezzocchi. Through Dec. 21. Two hours, five minutes. $36-$88. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. 925-943-7469. www.centerrep.org
