December 2013
The Christmas Satire by Christopher Durang
Directed by Greg J. Hipius
This production brings a new staging approach to this absurdly funny, fractured satire of the Dickens holiday classic, by the contemporary king of social and cultural satire, Christopher Durang.
Your host for the evening, a mysterious British-sounding gentleman from an equally mysterious anachronistic blue police box, plays all three ghosts as he tries to navigate Scrooge and the audience through Dickens’ time traveling tale. Malfunctions of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey type, however, see them thrown into Scrooge’s timeline out of story order, and also pick up an unintended and unwilling time travel “companion”: the normally ancillary character of Mrs. Bob Crachit, revealed to be quite fed up with her virtuous but impoverished husband and children.
Meanwhile, occasional departures into song turn a comically critical eye at the traditional Dickens adaptations we have come to expect. As the interdimensional malfunctions intensify, the story spins out of control and collides with the timelines of other holiday classics such as “The Gift of the Magi”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and many more. It is only with divine intervention from recently promoted angel Clarence that the time travel story can be righted, and both Mrs. Cratchit and Scrooge returned to where they truly belong, in an ending that replaces warmhearted redemption with the amoral sensibilities of modern society, and the knowledge that although redemption isn’t for everyone, the opportunity for it is… and we reap what we sow.
Cast
The Narrator: Justin Polly
Ebenezer Scrooge: Jon Wright
Mrs. Bob Cratchit: JoAnne Rougeux
Mr. Bob Cratchit: Matthew Green
Tiny Tim: Colleen Deitrich
Little Nell / Charity Collector: Kasey Marie McHale
Jacob Marley / Prayer Dispatcher: Hinda Crewell
Mrs. Fezziwig / Mrs. Beadle: Lesley Mikalauskas Heisler
Mr. Foreign Person / George Bailey: John Krenrich
Mrs. Foreign Person / Serena the Maid: Sarah Rauscher
Clarence the Angel: Christopher Best
The New Improved Mrs. Cratchit / Charity Collector: Nicole Attaie
Child 1 (and Young Marley): Zoe Miller
Child 2 (and Young Ebenezer): Elizabeth Rolnick
Accompaniment by: David Sabin