Alliance Theatre Artistic Director Susan Booth recently said, “During the last two years, we’ve all learned new patterns — some by choice, some by necessity.” We’ve watched our lives change throughout these challenging times, and for many of us, we now treasure more than ever that which has stayed the same. This year’s “A Christmas Carol” production at Alliance Theatre brings us a new adaptation and a unique new revolving set, but Charles Dickens’ story is the same one known and loved by generations. “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes was joined by director Leora Morris and set designer Todd Rosenthal to talk about the production that will once again bring to life the holiday season’s most quintessential story of human kindness.
Interview highlights:
On the new adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” by David H. Bell:
“What I find so striking about this adaptation is that David is acutely focused on the idea of family and community, and what does it mean to belong to a family, and how are we accountable to the communities around us, and where do we belong?” said Morris. “While the tale is certainly the same tale of a man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who comes to face his past and reckon with his present and make choices about his future, he’s situated in this community of folks that David has really amplified.”
“We really turn the dial up on the people that surround Scrooge that he’s disconnected from, that he’s missing out on, who he’s living alongside but not in a relationship with … He returns to this world alive and enlivened, and determined to enliven and to give,” Morris said.
On the revolving set, a one-of-a-kind feat of engineering:
“It’s all constructed by hand. One of the very few benefits of COVID was that they … had a lot of time to construct the set and to paint the set,” said Rosenthal.
“The challenge of doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ is there are so many different scenes, and there are so many different requirements,” said Rosenthal. “You not only need to figure out what each one of these different sets looks like, you need to have a method of moving from one scene to another that doesn’t slow down the production. What I tell my students is, ‘The way something moves is just as important as how it looks.’”
“We wanted this whimsical, beautiful, detailed Victorian town that could spin and change and evolve. And we also have other elements that come in from the sides, and so it’s constantly in motion,” Rosenthal added.
The otherworldly puppets that animate the production:
“They’re part of disrupting the civic space and adding the magic and the mystery,” said Morris. “All of our spirits — Jacob Marley, the ghost of Jacob Marley and the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future — show up and change the world with some magic in slightly different ways. But as we were thinking through how we wanted to do that in this world, with this kind of gesture, it started to feel like we needed … the breath and the spirit of a puppet to come in and be otherworldly enough to really rattle Scrooge, and to treat the audience to something from just a different world.”
Alliance Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol” production takes place through Dec. 24 on their Coca-Cola Stage. Tickets and more information are available at https://alliancetheatre.org/production/2021-22/a-christmas-carol.
A filmed version of this show will be available to stream on Alliance Theatre Anywhere Dec. 17 through Jan. 9, 2022.
