Christmas Extension

Back from the penultimate performance of this year's round of A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre. Since the final performance starts in a little over an hour, I'm glad no one is looking to me for go/no-go advice. For the record, it would have been "GO!!" - it's a wonderful, life-affirming story, sprightly told.

Edward Gero as Scrooge, with James Konicek as 

Marley's Ghost (in the portrait).

Photo by Scott Suchman for Ford's Theatre 

Cast, A Christmas Carol. Photo by Scott Suchman

Hard to believe this was my first CC at Ford's, since they do it every year. I don't know whether the production or staging changes from year to year - I suspect so. But I really liked this one a lot. The "twist" I hadn't seen before in this CC telling was the use of multiple casting such that the debtors whom Scrooge terrorizes pre-Marley's-ghost turn up later as ghosts past, present, and future. This gives it that same dreamlike quality of "you look familiar..." that you get from the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion in Wizard of Oz.

Sometimes you just get lucky and find very pleasant seatmates. Had a nice convo with a couple in town to see all the shows they could - Les Miz at National, White Christmas at KenCen, and this. Discovered also that the seat I purchased for this (as well as for the remaining two shows in this Ford's season, Hello Dolly and Our Town) is probably the most perfectly perfect seat I've sat in yet at Ford's, where as I have said before there is no good seat in the house. (Still haven't topped that second-to-last-row in the balcony where I first saw Edward Duke....)

So I was happy even before the show started. The show began with the villagers wandering through the aisles of the theater introducing themselves. I love that. The balcony was decorated with the same Christmas decor as the set. And one of the cast members I recognized right away was that adorable Tom Story I'm well on the way to having a crush on. (His last hilarious turn was as one of the unsuitable suitors of the ingenue in Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company.)

The show was a wonderful tribute to the spirit we strive for, or at least we think we do, most of the time, when we're not all being Republicans and Democrats about this sort of thing. Humanity is our business, isn't it? So leave the decorations up awhile longer and let the season last at least as long after December 25 as it does before.

love,
hosaa,
spirit-visited