The Magic of 'A Christmas Carol' Lives On

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 12:14:00 -0800

From musicals to stage plays to miniseries and films, adaptations of A Christmas Carol continue to be produced, performed, and patronized. During Christmastime, homes are decorated, specialty dishes are made, carolers sing, photos are taken with Santa, gifts are purchased, and A Christmas Carol is enjoyed. Charles Dickens’ classic story of a community’s hope and one man’s redemption, remain at the heart of the holiday.

A Christmas Carol, a story about the miserable Ebenezer Scrooge, was first published in London in on 1843 by Chapman & Hall. Dickens, already a well-established author at the time, was said to be inspired to write this story after a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s homeless children. A Christmas Carol became an instant hit, selling out just four days after hitting bookstore shelves. It’s a tale that has been remixed and remastered more times than one can count, but continues to be a fan favorite celebrating the true meaning of the Christmas season.

From film adaptations like Marley’s Ghost, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged, and The Man Who Invented Christmas, the story of a miserable old man who believes Christmas is a “hum-bug,” before encountering three ghosts who change his life, continues to enchant audiences across the globe on screen and stage. This beloved narrative, most especially, has had decades long staying power in the theater. By 1844, just a year after the book was published, dramatizations of A Christmas Carol began to appear on the London stage. One of them, A Christmas Carol, Or Past Present and Future, even received a personal endorsement by Dickens himself. By the 19^th century, yet another adaptation would take root and quickly become an audience favorite. John Copeland Buckstone premiered Scrooge at London's Vaudeville Theatre in October 1901. The play was adored by many and became the inspiration behind the first film iteration of the classic story. R.W. Paul’s film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost, was the earliest known film adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

One of the most famous stage adaptations of A Christmas Carol, was a musical adaptation by American composer, Alan Menken. The musical played at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, from 1994 to 2003. Fresh off of his Academy Award wins for Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Menken was given freedom to assemble a dream team of collaborators to work with on this project. His team included choreographer Susan Stroman, late British stage director Mike Ockrent, and Tony-nominated Once on This Island lyricist Lynn Ahrens. During the ten years at the Garden, a host of luminaries played Scrooge, including Terrence Mann, Tony Randall, Hal Linden, Roddy McDowall, F. Murray Abraham, Frank Langella, Tim Curry, Tony Roberts, Roger Daltrey, Jim Dale, and the full cast featured over 100 performers. This production also inspired a television film adaptation of the same name that premiered on the NBC television network in 2004. The production had its London debut in 2013, and subsequently held a concert at the London Musical Theatre Orchestra.

Tony-winning playwright, Jack Thorne’s (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) 2017 adaptation is the most recent commercially produced iteration of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. The Tony Award®-winning production, originally conceived and directed by Matthew Warchus, now creates a new holiday tradition for families around the globe. Thorne’s adaptation premiered at the Old Vic in London in November 2017 for a limited run, and returned during the holiday seasons in 2018 and 2019. Following its success in London, the play made its Broadway debut at the Lyceum Theatre in November 2019. The production won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Adaptation and recently took home five 2020 Tony Awards including, Best Original Score (Christopher Nightingale), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Rob Howell), Best Costume Design of a Play (Rob Howell), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Hugh Vanstone), and Best Sound Design of a Play (Simon Baker). Now in 2021,

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 12:14:00 -0800

Jack Thorne’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol is staged unlike any other version of this story before it. The critically acclaimed, Tony Award®-winning production, originally conceived and directed by Matthew Warchus, is as beautiful and enchanting as you would expect a holiday extravaganza to be. Warchus wanted to transform this iteration of A Christmas Carol into an opulent immersive experience. This traditional story comes to life with Rob Howell’s shadowy set and costume designs, and from the first ring of the handbell woven delicately into the music composition created by Christopher Nightingale and accentuated by Simon Baker’s illustrious sound design to the orange hues bursting from multiple small lanterns hung across the ceiling fashioned by lighting designer, Hugh Vanstone, this production of a beloved holiday tale has taken on an identity and dark beauty of its own.

When one imagines the perfect Christmas story, lights and music are abundant and finely intertwined. Both Nightingale and Vanstone worked together with Warchus to create a version of this production that was both opulent and true to its legacy, yet particularly minimalistic and unconventional. “Scrooge doesn’t even have a bed,” Vanstone says of the set’s more stripped-down nature. Vanstone, who builds lighting design concepts after reading a script, was able to create an atmosphere with lights in order to compensate for what needed to be pulled away from Howell’s creatively bare set design. “We all know Scrooge is a dark story, because it's about confronting your demons. Matthew had said at the very beginning that we've got to bear that in mind,” he explains. “And of course, he wanted also to delineate the three ghosts, and for them to have different worlds. Immediately, it's a story from dark to light.” This production’s array of colors used in Vanstone’s lighting design serves the eyes luxury and grandeur that enhances a rather dark stage. “For the scene with the Fezziwigs, it's all about warmth and open-hearted behavior. When something is warm and makes you feel good, then I create a warm, softer light from a firelight angle,” Vanstone explains of his design. “Then when Marley arrives, that's full-on horror story. It’s your worst nightmare. I created more of that cold, green-y blue that makes people think of misery, dank, and nasty places.”

Vanstone has a long history with A Christmas Carol that goes far beyond this production. He developed lighting inspiration for this play from A Christmas Carol pop-up book he read as a child, and rediscovered when he first received the call for this project. “All these scenes came out of the page. I can't tell you how atmospheric that book is. The memory of that [book] and getting it out again was a big influence,” he expressed. Vanstone also worked on, and drew inspiration from a production of Scrooge: The Musical, written by Leslie Bricusse. “That one had lots of magic effects, and flying in it, and all sorts of stuff. But I had a trial run with that one. In a way, I was saying, ‘Well, it's not that one. So, what's the simplest version of it I can create.’" Though Vanstone designed a more pulled back version of that 1992 musical, this production’s lighting design is anything but simple.

In the case of Nightingale, he created most of the score during the play’s early developmental process and then fine-tuned the music during the show’s rehearsal period. “In the first readthroughs you get a flavor of a production and a smell of it and how stylistically it should sound,” he said. “Early on I knew I wanted the score to sound like very old-fashioned chamber music and have a folk element, which is why the orchestration includes a piano, a violin, a clarinet, and a cello.” He does admit it did get quite complicated to create music for the more emotional parts of this play. “The hardest bit [to create] was the big scene in the second act, when Scrooge and his coffin come on, and he goes to the Ghost of Christmas Future and sees his destiny and what's going to become of him if he carries on the way he is,” he details. “Bob comes up to the coffin and Belle comes up and they all talk so sadly about him and he suddenly realizes what is happening. And then young Ebenezer jumps on the coffin and there's a scene where he looks at Scrooge and looks at what he could have been. It’s a very complex scene and I found that it was quite daunting to write and particularly scary, because, I didn’t want to screw up such beautiful writing.” Though both men admittingly found it to be a task to create a new experience for a legendary holiday show, under the direction of Warchus, this production swept the play design categories at the 74th Annual Tony Awards. A Christmas Carol won five awards including, Best Original Score, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design, and that is no Christmas miracle.

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The Magic of 'A Christmas Carol' Lives On