Directed and adapted by Michael Shamata. Based on the novel by Charles
Dickens. Featuring Joseph Ziegler, John Jarvis and Oliver Dennis.
Presented by SoulPepper Theatre Company. To Dec 24. Mon-Sat 7:30pm; matinee
times vary (see website for details). $28-$65. Young Centre for the
Performing Arts, bldg 49, 55 Mill. 416-866-8666.
www.soulpepper.ca.
With Charles Dickens’ famous morality tale, A Christmas Carol, Soulpepper closes its ’08 season, marking both its 10-year anniversary and its two-year residency at the Young Centre in the Distillery.
This is a remount of the production that ran from 2001 to 2002 and again in 2006 (most of the original cast is back), and it’s a theatre-in-the-round version of Dickens’ tale — adapted and directed by Michael Shamata — that is foremost a ghost story. Yes, it still includes the festive Fezziwigs, the jangling Jacob Marley, the lost love Belle and, of course, Tiny Tim, but the focus sits very strongly on Scrooge and the three spirits — past, present, and future. This triad of intangibles is also played by the same performer, John Jarvis, making for a curiously continual and almost personal relationship between the apparitions and the miser.
The novel’s text is reduced enough to work for the theatre but is reverent enough to its source to honour the nature of the necessary moments. However, the pacing of the show as a whole gets thrown off at times, especially during the period-appropriate dance sequence, which seems mandatory nowadays for any historical piece.
As the wicked old pinch Ebenezer Scrooge, Soulpepper founding member Joseph Ziegler has a clear mastery of the stage and is elated enough in his redemption to warm the heart, but both his bitterness and his terror seem slightly muted, not matching his raw power at the end. Jarvis as the host of holiday spectres appears to play towards the children — the many in attendance on opening night clearly enjoying a rare work that strikes both young and old equally. He is big and bold in his delivery, complete with wide eyes filled with almost clown-like wonder.
The production itself is minimal (for Soulpepper), recreating Victorian London more through atmosphere than through complete sets. Not only does this work well for the theatre’s layout but it also allows for moments of pure theatricality. When Scrooge and the spirit of the present are required to fly over the city, they do so atop a ladder around which a mobile, five-piece circular sky line — complete with St. Paul’s and the London Bridge — revolves gracefully around them. The lighting shifts, usually connected to the burning or extinguishing of real candles, blending together almost seamlessly and making the numerous transitions both efficient and eerie.
Not content to deal only with the cold economics of Scrooge’s counting house, Soulpepper is using the production to help out today’s needy — Ziegler retakes the stage after the bows to request donations for a local food bank. The past 10 years have been good to Soulpepper, in terms of both successful performances and patronage, and it is refreshing to see a theatre now famous for its ability to re-stage the past looking towards a bigger future.