Bennett, Wynne Breath New Life Into Scrooge
by Ron Foley MacDonald
The Sunday Daily News December 3, 2000
Photo and text copyright 2000 The Daily News. Used with permission.
|
Scrooge by Warren Graves, adapted from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Neptune Theatre's annual Holiday show is a lively unconventional transformation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Retitled Scrooge, it's a compact and fast-paced production that features so much of Neptune's considerable theatrical firepower - particularly some wild lighting and sound effects - that it sometimes overwhelms Dickens' sturdy material. Still, with two marvelously imaginative performances by Joe Wynne as Tiny Tim and Nigel Bennett in the title role, Scrooge can't help but be entertaining. Author Warren Graves has certainly taken some liberties with the beloved tale. The play begins with Tiny Tim and his sister Belinda - a somewhat reduced version of Bob Cratchet's sprawling brood - selling matches and laundry services on Christmas Eve in grimy Victorian London. Graves uses the opportunity to discuss and display the basic shortcomings of unrestrained capitalism. It's a rather strange and risky way to begin the story, especially when the entire production is brisk to the point of abrupt. Delaying Scrooge's introduction for so long, however, builds up anticipation for a character who has entered the popular consciuosness so firmly - from Canadian Tire television commercials to various Christmas daddies co-hosts - that we all think we know him fully and completely. It's all a deliberate set-up to help make Nigel Bennett's characterization so unexpected and delightful. His Ebenzer is a terse and very physical Scrooge, commanding and initially, fearless. Bennett adds a surprising level of brutishness to the performance. At one point, he flings Tiny Tim to the ground so hard you can't help but wonder if the boy will ever get up again. Scrooge's ultimate conversion over to the Christmas spirit, then, comes as sudden and almost shocking. Bennett protrays his new Ebenezer as a liberated, talkative and unrestrained man who is full of giddy holiday joy. Like much of Graves' adaption, this key dramatic point comes more as a jolt than a true character development. While Bennett handles it with gusto, it does display some of the weaknesses that bedevil this particular version of a very familiar story. Joe Wynne's convincing turn as a slightly older Tiny Tim is an astonishingly acrobatic and precise performance full of grim determination and open-hearted enthusiasm. Director Jean Morpurgo doesn't achieve a very steady tone throughout the play, especially when she tries to place the two powerhouse performances of Wynne and Bennett in the context of a relatively low-keyed family-oriented Holiday show. Worse, the industrial-strength sound and lighting effects actually scared the wits of some of the younger members of the audience. The heavy gothic touch of the production, with Patrick Clark's dank Victorian sets and ratty costumes for the ghosts and the lower class characters, was similarly overplayed. It was left to the actors to carry the action forward from the darkness of capital cruelty to the light of human charity and goodness. With Bennett and Wynne ably assisted by a fine supporting cast in David McClelland, Deborah Allen and Jeremy Webb all in jolly, good-natured Victorian form, this brief but punchy production of Scrooge manages to keep faith with the Charles Dickens enduring original. |