A Christmas Carol (2024)

James Alexander Rankin as Bob Cratchit
"A Christmas Carol"
(Great Lakes Theater, 2024)
Costume design by James Scott
Scenic Design by John Ezell
& Gene Emerson Friedman
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Great Lakes Theater first produced A Christmas Carol in 1989. Then-Artistic Director Gerald Freedman wrote an adaptation that cleaves neatly to the original work. As a framing device, the Cleaveland family (the name is never spoken, you can find it in your program) gather together on Christmas Eve to read Charles Dickens’ classic work, a simple and elegant entry to the story.

Recently, I discovered my ticket for the first time I saw the show, surprised to see it was from that first year. Dated December 22, 1989, it may even have been closing night. I was twenty-one, home for the holidays during my fourth year at college. At the time I was most impressed by the Ghost of Christmas Present, performed by Kevin McCarty. Kevin was completing his MFA in Acting at Ohio University just as I was an incoming freshman. A big man with a stern brown and a deep and resonant voice, his ghost was full of life and joy but also quite intimidating.

Since that time, the Great Lakes production has grown into a true institution. I cannot imagine anyone intending this or any regional theater production to continue for five years, let alone thirty-six and counting, and I truly believe the city would be poorer with its absence. Part of that is due to Mr. Dickens, but also Mr. Freedman and the entire original creative team.

Because of the sincerity of the framing device – which includes the youngest of the Cleavelands wordlessly witnessing the evens of the story, casting members of his household as the characters – this adaptation has avoided becoming dated. It is commonplace for us to ironically wink at the audience because, you know, it’s A Christmas Carol, after all. But it’s played straight, and so it stands, not stuck in the 1980s or 90s, but entirely Victorian in style and language.

Kevin McCarty as the Ghost of Christmas Present
(Great Lakes Theater, 1996)
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Credit is due to this adaptation embracing Dickens’ message of social justice and economic disparity, including details from the novel which are often glossed over. I am especially touched by the scene when Christmas Present takes Scrooge around the globe, and even beneath the earth, to see miners, a lighthouse keeper, and a ships’ captain out to sea. The breadth of humanity and the wideness of the world is sublimely depicted here through traditional stage tricks of light and darkness and fog. The hand-tooled appearance of the set and effects contributes greatly to the sweetness and enduring popularity of this production.

From 1982 to 2008, Great Lakes produced exclusively in the Ohio (now Mimi Ohio) Theatre. Relocating the majority of their work to the Hanna Theatre sixteen seasons ago, A Christmas Carol remains in the Mimi Ohio, the theater for which it was designed. Retrofitting the show to the intimate Hanna would for all intents and purposes mean redesigning the entire production, which would make it something entirely different, and not necessarily for the better. In the stately Ohio the show is like a handsome and antique holiday picture postcard.

I started bringing my own, living children to see A Christmas Carol when each turned four years old. But this is a ghost story, and there are some remarkable frights along the way. Marley’s entrance is startling (it includes a dramatic reminder of from where he is arriving) which often produces squeaks and squeals from youthful audience members. I stayed particularly attentive to our eldest their first year (2007) as the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come made its silent, awe-inspiring appearance. After a few intense moments, our little one leaned to me and whispered, “... is that a puppet?” They were spooked, but even at that age they knew a thing or two about stagecraft.

During the 2015-2016 season, Playhouse Square renovated the lobby of the Ohio, restoring it to its original 1920s grandeur. That holiday season, however, due to the construction, it was necessary to take a long, narrow, featureless tunnel into the theater. But what I best remember was that that was the year my entire side of the family – my parents, my brothers and their spouses, my wife and children and our nieces – we all saw the show together on the same night. Father said he’d never seen it before, which surprised me. The memory of this evening is all the more poignant for me as our father died early the next year.

Nick Steen in costume as Ebenezer Scrooge
handing out awards for the
"A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest
(November 26, 2024)

As should be made evident, in addition to my responsibilities assisting with student matinees and facilitating the A Christmas Carol Writing Contest, I have also seen the show many times, watching with a kind of fascination as the tone changes with each director (technically, it has always been “directed by Gerald Freedman” as each subsequent director works to maintain his original staging) and the several – though surprisingly few – men who have assumed the mantle of Ebenezer Scrooge.

A week before Thanksgiving this year, and just as the show was about to open, I was asked to join the acting company, a necessary last-minute replacement. An understudy would take the first weekend, and I would join in thereafter and for the rest of the run. And so my entire holiday schedule this year has been turned upside-down, a crash course in A Christmas Carol and an altogether delightful experience, though at first a bit like jumping onto a moving train.

It was not surprising to me that several members of the company assumed I had performed in this show before. I have worked for Great Lakes Theater for some time. But I have not done this show, and I am very glad to participate in this way, grateful for the opportunity.

At a talkback last week, a student asked the company which moment in the show is our favorite, and I said the street scenes. There are three times when nearly the entire company crosses the stage – that’s a lot of people and not a terribly large space. The choreography is tight and I did mess up once or twice the first couple of times, crushed against a window or bumping into furniture. But by the end of Thanksgiving weekend I felt like an old hand, and am now truly able to breathe and enjoy those moments.

Myself, in costume emceeing the
"A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest
(December 3, 2024)

I’ve made new friends in the company, and am having the chance to work with others I’ve known for years but have never shared a stage with. Some members of the “young company” are the children of old friends, or even students I have taught in schools through the residency program. It’s a youthful, vibrant company – even for those of us who aren’t so young anymore.

And that may be why I love this season, and this production, and the lesson it brings. It is about our shared humanity, negotiating this one world together. No one is more respectful nor deferential than a player in a narrow backstage space, making way for a fellow company or crew member who needs a clear path to rush from point to point, holding a large prop or a basket of costumes, or sporting a voluminous, hallway-spanning skirt.

For closing thoughts, I give you nephew Fred:

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time … as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

“And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

- “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, 1843

Great Lakes Theater's 36th annual production of "A Christmas Carol" continues through December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: I am employed by Great Lakes Theater. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.