By: David de Young
"The Goose is on the Loose"
Raye Birk as Ebenezer Scrooge - Photo by Michal Daniel
I’ll make a concerted effort to say as little as possible about my choice of subtitles for this review, but if you’ve seen the show you know what I mean. And if you choose to attend, you’ll find out soon enough.
It’s been years since I attended a production of A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater. Although I am sure it was in the 90s, it could just as easily been in the '80s or even the '70s for that matter, as A Christmas Carol has been a Guthrie tradition now for a full third of a century. (Now that’s what you might call a good run, eh?)
The 2007 production opened November 20th and runs through December 29th. I attended a Sunday evening performance opening weekend, and my companion and I both got more than we bargained for. I expected a well-acted production, but wasn’t expecting one quite so grandiose; and my companion, who was somewhat unfamiliar with the Dickens story– believe it or not – had, ahem, no great expectations.
Raye Birk returns in the starring role of Scrooge for the third straight year (watch Birk’s description of the show on the Guthrie site here). Also wonderfully cast is Stephen Pelinski as the Ghost of Christmas Present. And Hugh Kennedy is memorable as young Ebeneezer. Even though some of the actors double up on roles, the cast is huge, yet another epic aspect of the production.
The show eases you nicely into the holiday spirit and includes well-sung Christmas classics plus welcome traditional carols like “Welcome Yule,” “The Wassail Song,” “Good King Wenceslas” and the classy “Fum, Fum Fum.” Even a Norse song “Je er sa glad” gets a small treatment. (My Norwegian friend tells me that translates roughly as, “I am so glad,” though possibly in this context it might be stretched to mean jolly.
The show was again directed by Gary Gisselman who took over directorship of the offering around the turn of the millennium. Gisselman has no qualms about going for the jugular vein on humor when the opportunity arises, sometimes taking the action so far as to border on the loony. (I promised to try and keep quiet about it, but you’ll see one example of this when Fezziwig attempts to carve the Christmas goose.) A few visual gimmicks were downright extravagant: a fully-laden sleigh descending from the rafters or tombstones popping up through the floor, but my father, ever the cynic about the entertainment dollar and with much experience in the theater, pointed out, nobody ever went broke overestimating the level of sophistication of the audience in a production of this sort.
Christmas with the Fezziwig family - Daniel
The Guthrie’s production of A Christmas Carol will disappoint almost no one. A story of the heart with more in common with a Broadway extravaganza than with most other Guthrie productions this or any season, chances are good sophisticated theater-goers will even have fun. And if this is the only Guthrie production you go to this year you’ll probably have a blast.
Tickets: $64-$29, guthrietheater.org or 612-377-2224
Location Info:
Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: Guthrie Theater
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus