Scrutinizing Scrooge at BPA

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, December 11, 2002

What made Scrooge such a, well, scrooge?

That question is the focus of Joanne Keegan’s original adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

The Bainbridge Performing Arts holiday production, performed Dec. 12-14 by BPA fifth-12th-grade Theater School students, examines the psychological underpinnings of the famous curmudgeon.

“I’ve always loved ‘Christmas Carol,’ but I’ve never done it, and it’s fresh for the kids,” said Keegan, who has directed BPA productions including “The Secret Garden” and the “Ravenwood Trilogy.”

“But some of the stage versions don’t go into why Scrooge is the way he is.”

Dickens’ novel about the transformation of miserly businessman Ebenezer Scrooge, his put-upon clerk, Bob Cratchit, the shade of Scrooge’s former partner Jacob Marley, and the cast of ghosts who scare Scrooge into generosity has been perennial Christmas fare since the author penned the work in the closing weeks of 1843.

Adapted and filmed more than 200 times, the work haunts the season like Marley’s ghost.

But audiences are often introduced to the grownup Scrooge without understanding how his childhood made him a misanthrope.

Keegan’s script re-introduces much of the novel’s introductory character development. Audiences learn, for example, that Ebenezer’s father blames him for his mother’s death in childbirth.

So Scrooge is sent off to school – a critique, Keegan contends, of the English practice of packing children off to boarding schools at a young age.

“Dickens looked at that and he saw something wrong with it,” Keegan said.

Another blow to Scrooge’s psyche comes in the form of the death of a beloved sister – again, in childbirth.

“He becomes more and more afraid of feelings,” Keegan said. “Only facts and figures make sense to him.”

Dickens’ pre-Freudian notion that

the past shapes the present was prescient, Keegan believes.

But character is not set in stone, and the unfolding of Scrooge’s character, seen in the context of his whole life, gave the theater students a chance to examine moral questions.

“The kids talked about what motivates a person to act a certain way and they saw how Scrooge changes,” she said. “What I appreciate most about ‘Christmas Carol’ is that Dickens is talking about our responsibility toward each other.”

Working on the play has made the 19th century come alive for the theater students, she believes.

“The really neat thing is how the kids have become interested in the era the story is set in,” she said. “They’ll ask all kinds of questions about daily life.”

Keegan researched the background and filled students in on subjects like the personal hygiene of the era, which called for baths once a month.

“I recommended daily baths to the cast, though,” Keegan said. “This is not method acting.”

The students, some of whom are in their first major production, have worked hard to bring “A Christmas Carol” to the main stage, Keegan says, so she hopes that audiences will support their effort – and enjoy good theater.

“It’s a tale about the healing power of redemption and it has ghosts,” Keegan said.

“What’s not to love?”

* * * * *

Bainbridge Performing Arts Theatre School presents an original one-hour adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Dec. 12-14 at the Playhouse.

A cast of 17 characters and Kabuki style puppets animate the timeless classic scripted and directed by Joanne Keegan and performed by BPA’s fifth through 12th-grade theatre school production class.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12, -14, with a matinee at 3 p.m. Dec. 14. Tickets are $9 for seniors and students and $12 for adults, available at the Playhouse or by phone at 842-8569.

Information: www.theplayhouse.org.