a twisted xmas carol

Jen decided I needed some culture so she scooped some tickets for Rock Paper Scissors’ production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The show runs til December 19 at the Belfry.

My heartfelt thanks to Jen’s mom for letting those tickets go. Colleen missed out on The Good Times.

First off, however, I should apologize to Rock Paper Scissors. Acknowledging that Dickens has been dead for a while and the story could use a touch of updating they asked us what it was exactly that Scrooge did for a living. I swear I waited. I gave everyone a chance to speak up. But then I had to take it.

Scrooge, the disco diva.

Full credit to the cast for rolling well with that one. There were a couple of obligatory dance numbers, but Donna Summers did not make an appearance. Admirable restraint, I think. They did have a story to tell, after all.

I did wonder how they would make the whole show work. Semi-scripted improv sounds like it would be easier and maybe it is when you’re doing five or seven shows a week. Or ten. Whatever it is they’re doing. But I found that the cast blitzed through the scripted bits, sometimes forgetting to really perform them with any sincerity. Scrooge talks fast. Not to say the show wasn’t good. I was thoroughly entertained and if you go I can’t imagine you’d be disappointed. Nevertheless I felt like they were saving their energy, perhaps understandably, for the improvised bits. Figuring out how to make offers like disco diva work with the story.

As I said though, the show was well produced, smoothly run, and a lot of fun. They worked a few well-known games into the mix like spontaneous poetry and that guessing game where the mark has to figure out the How, What & Where that the audience has provided. In this case Scrooge had to figure out that unless he mended his ways he would die horribly skydiving with a piano in an elevator. What. It could happen. Shut up. You don’t know.

In the end Scrooge has his epiphany, the Cratchets get their enormous Christmas carrot, and Tiny Tim doesn’t die from schizophrenia after all. Merry Christmas, every one.