By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Marley was dead.
That’s how any version of “The Christmas Carol” needs to start.
A journalist has got to love that lead, and as a skilled journalist Dickens did not bury it, only Marley.
And the Black Swamp Players oblige with their “A Virtual Christmas Carol,” a COVID-19 friendly rewriting of the classic holiday tale. The show will be livestreamed Friday, Dec. 11, and Saturday, Dec. 12, at 7:30 p.m. with an on-demand recorded matinee Sunday, Dec. 13, at 2 p.m. For details on tickets and access, visit the Black Swamp Players website, blackswampplayers.org.
As Charles Dickens (Hans Giller) delivers that fateful sentence though in this case Marley (Tracy Armentrout) is Jade Marley, not Jacob.
Dickens’ tale plays out as a series of phone calls, including from landlines when the ghost of Christmas Past (Beth Giller) is our guide.
Lane Hakel plays Scrooge, who is bluntly described as “a jerk” rather than the string of invective that Dickens employed.
In true pandemic fashion, Bob Cratchit (Heath Diehl) is working from home, though Scrooge still bullies him with the accustomed threats of losing his situation.
The nephew (Patrick Davis) is a spaced-out hippie, who evidently has spiked the Christmas punch with a particular special ingredient.
Of course, you wonder when the solicitors (Monica Hiris and Sarah Aichholz) ring whether this isn’t telemarketing. Scrooge clearly does not screen his calls.
The whole play is delivered with a flip attitude. Tiny Tim (Aidan Thomas) describes himself “a menace to society” and later says he really prefers just to be called Tim.
As Scrooge, Hakel is kind of a softie, yielding to the least provocation to realize the error of his ways. It seems not to take much to poke through his gruff exterior.
When his beau Belle (Anne Giller) calls to break up with him. It’s a gut punch that plays well into the conceit of the production. He needs to get to another call, a business call, he tells Belle, and tries to put off getting the inevitable news. Later we learn that she marries Rick (Andy Kessler), Scrooge’s old co-worker at Fezziwig’s.
Jacqui DeFriece’s Ghost of Christmas Present is particularly dogged in encouraging Scrooge’s emerging remorse.
Scrooge really gets into a game of charades at his nephew’s where the only guest (Deb Shaffer) is visiting via Zoom.
Like life for the rest of us, the characters in this place have limits on their social gatherings – we don’t get to see Scrooge and Rick enjoy their company party, probably the greatest company party in history. Instead, we hear Fezziwig (Davis doing double duty as a party animal) invite them – they, too, are working from home.
So much in Dickens’ novel revolves around people gathered together to celebrate whether at the comfortable abode of the nephew, Fezziwig’s warehouse, or the Cratchit’s hovel.
With the Cratchits we’re privy to phone calls between Bob and the family waiting for him at home. While all in the same house, each occupies their own screen. Peter (Clayton Sooy) is making a video of the activities.
And that captures the aesthetic of this production – home-made, do what they can to keep us entertained in these pandemic times while giving us a taste of a holiday favorite.
Meantime, we can look forward to next Christmas when we hope we’ll be able to gather for a more traditional holiday entertainment from the Black Swamp Players.
