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Miser reviser
Here comes another Christmas Carol
BY SALLY CRAGIN

In a year in which Boston Ballet’s Sugar Plum Fairy has to scour the Classifieds for new digs, isn’t it grand that some area Christmas traditions continue? The trees will be decorated on Boston Common, sidewalk Santas will shake their bells for charity, and, in Providence, Trinity Repertory Company will unveil its 27th annual production of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as adapted by founding director Adrian Hall and Richard Cumming.

But wait — there’s another Trinity Christmas Carol on the boards, with a movie star in the skinflint’s nightgown. Stacy Keach will play Ebenezer Scrooge in a new production adapted by Trinity Rep artistic director Oskar Eustis and associate artistic producer Amanda Dehnert. Performances begin this Tuesday at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. Why two productions (actually three, if you count the dual casts of the Providence show)?

"At the moment, we have no plans for this taking the place of the Trinity Carol," Eustis says over the phone from Providence, adding merrily, "We wanted to take a new crack at it, and we just want to extend the joys to Boston." Those include a set by acclaimed designer Eugene Lee (Ragtime) and an original score by Dehnert (who has supplied music for the Trinity productions of The Cider House Rules and As You Like It). Even Scrooge gets his own theme, one the composer describes as "a modern take on your basic minor Gothic organ prelude. It’s simple but has a lot of propulsion to it."

As for the book, Eustis returned to Dickens’s original story to examine the miser more closely. "The Scrooge we meet at the start of the play is a man who defines himself only as an individual, not as part of the community. The entire movement of the play is a community trying to reclaim someone back into the fold." Eustis likens aspects of the new Carol to the fire-and-brimstone sermons of Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards: "What he called ‘the urgent now for the languid will.’ " In other words, " ‘Change now — for tomorrow is too late.’ "

Bringing "theatrical roots and deep star power" to the role is Stacy Keach. "This is a classically trained actor who has a size and ferocity with the part that’s absolutely extraordinary," Eustis points out. "In the first part of the show, there’s a grandeur to his wickedness which is amazing. Watching a wonderful actor get those steps right is heartbreaking."

The star has a lengthy résumé in Shakespearean work alone, but this is his inaugural performance as what director Kevin Moriarty calls "Dickens’s Lear." "It’s a part I’ve always wanted to play," Keach explains. "There’s a rhythm and a cadence to his speech that gives it a classical feel." One surprise for him has been Ebenezer’s recurrent (and relentless) black humor: "I didn’t know he was quite so funny." Keach adds, "It’s so much outside the realm of humanity. That screaming and yelling at a little child who’s singing . . . " Here he pauses and then continues in a deafening yet perfectly controlled bellow, " ‘STOP THAT SINGING!’ "; then in the same breath he continues, as if in casual conversation, "There’s an exaggeration I find appealing — you can go there as an actor and let it all hang out."

A Christmas Carol is presented by Trinity Repertory Company December 9 through 27 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street in the Theater District. Tickets are $15 to $68; go to the Majestic box office, or call (800) 233-3123, or visit www.telecharge.com


Issue Date: December 5 - 11, 2003
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