PROVIDENCE – Like Del’s lemonade and traffic jams on Route 1 define summertime here, Trinity Repertory Company’s annual performance of “A Christmas Carol” has become synonymous with its own season in Rhode Island. For many, Christmastime is not complete without a visit to the theater on Washington Street to see another remaining of the classic Charles Dickens tale.
This year, those faithful legions will not be disappointed by director Fred Sullivan Jr.’s offering. He tells “A Christmas Carol” in an authentically Victorian style that truly fits Dickens’ story.
There are two rotating casts of adult actors and four of child actors. This reviewer saw a performance with the “Ivy Cast,” featuring veteran actor William Damkoehler, who has been a performer with Trinity Rep since 1967, as the villain-turned-hero Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Damkoehler almost manages the tough role with ease – he is onstage for nearly the entire two hour performance and has a complete personality change by the end of the play, but remains energetic until the very end. The audience can’t help but root for Damkoehler’s Scrooge – and, in turn the spirit of What Christmas Could Be – by the end of his supernatural journey.
“A Christmas Carol” has always been a simultaneously obvious and unusual choice for holiday theater. Of course, the play’s timing and it’s good-will-toward-men message are pitch-perfect for the Christmas season. But, the ghosts, the aching regret, the confrontations with death – this is the stuff of ghost stories and Halloween spooks.”
Charged with the responsibility of making ghosts festive, death jolly and wrapping it all up in red ribbon, Sullivan was able to expertly carve new niches of holiday cheer in what could have been another tired holiday production. The bright, period costumes and lively child actors get the holiday spirit started and the wandering musicians and snowfall, even upon the audience, keep the play cheery. Sullivan’s rendition of the Christmas classic is often funny, too, which turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.
The humor is a much-needed cure for what could have been a saccharine scene between the reborn Scrooge and his whiskey-slugging maid Mrs. Partlet, played by Cynthia Strickland. Sullivan’s sense of humor saved many of the final scenes of the play where the exuberance of a newly-saved Scrooge edges dangerously near to cloying as he throws money at every Londoner he sees.
The same humor that saved the ending, however, falls flat at the play’s beginning. The entrance of Jacob Marley’s ghost, played by director Sullivan, is a time when suspense should build as Scrooge is confronted by his own dark future. But, the suspense was continually and frustratingly broken by the discord of a sarcastic, wisecracking Scrooge unnoticed by an over-the-top Marley. Their scene is soon over, though, and as soon as Sullivan gets back to directing the play takes flight, quite literally.
The Ghost of Christmas Past, played by Mauro Hantman, soars out of a second story window on the stationary set. Dressed in a jester’s harlequin-patterned suit and flying about the stage and into the audience, Hantman breathes new life into Scrooge’s troubled past.
The Ghost of Christmas Present, played by Joe Wilson Jr., is slightly less impressive, although he does rise up out of the stage. His costume, a hugely oversized velvet robe is slightly ridiculous, as is his accent, and both detract from the scene.
The story is familiar to nearly everyone, and by the end of the play it seems as though the cast is sprinting to the finish. It is likely the combined effect of both the audience and the cast anticipating every coming move. There are no surprises this year at Trinity Rep, everything is just the way you remembered it, whether that is good news or not is up to you.
In the end, this year’s “A Christmas Carol” at Trinity Rep is everything Christmas traditions usually are – an imperfect but comforting reminder of Christmases past. The story has the same ending every year, but the journey there is marked by new scenery and landmarks. Sullivan’s “A Christmas Carol,” marking his directorial debut at Trinity Rep, is another look at the classic tale, the 31st such look taken by the theater.
As Christmas traditions go, this one is as inviting and familiar as any and is sure to fill everyone with holiday cheer. And isn’t that the best part about Christmas traditions?
A Christmas Carol
Trinity Repertory Company
201 Washington Street, Providence
Performances scheduled through December 29:
Monday - Friday at 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m., 2, 5 and 8 p.m.
Closed December 25 and 26.
Tickets available online at www.trinityrep.com, by phone
(401) 351-4242, or in person at the theater box office.
