A Christmas Carol
Quaint it ain't. The virtues of Cygnet Theatre's production of Dickens' Christmas ghost story are all there at the outset — really, before the outset, when the cast members are strolling about the stage singing carols and telling jokes. The jokes are silly;the carols, sincere. And then as the play proper gets started, they shift smoothly and spookily into declaring the news of the day: Jacob Marley is dead. You might smile a bit at just how often they repeat that cold fact, but a cold fact it remains, and there you have it: this is a sad and sometimes scary story about mortality and doom, but told with the charm, wit, and warmth necessary to keep hope alive.
Marley is dead, but Dickens does what Father Abraham would not in the story of the rich man and Lazarus: he sends the damned dead man to warn one who is still living: old Ebenezer Scrooge. And what a warning: here and elsewhere, the production achieves a maximum of stagecraft with a minimum of effects. It may be relatively easy to make the puppets portraying Ignorance and Want properly creepy, but it's trickier to give sweet life to Tiny Tim, and it's a credit to the versatile cast that they manage it with seeming ease. Most remarkable of all: everything here works to wipe away the dull dinginess of familiarity and restore the old magic to the story of a nightmare that rouses a soul from its selfish slumber.
When
Ongoing until Saturday, December 24, 2022
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm-4pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm-9:30pm |
| Thursdays, 7:30pm-9:30pm |
| Fridays, 7:30pm-9:30pm |
| Saturdays, 7:30pm-9:30pm |