Charles Dickens Begrudgingly
Performs ‘A Christmas Carol.’
Again.
Created and Performed by Blake Montgomery
at The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter (map)
thru Dec 24 | tickets: $15-$30 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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Sometimes words alone are worth a thousand pictures
The Building Stage presents
Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs
‘A Christmas Carol.’ Again.
Review by John Olson
We can’t go to the Goodman’s Christmas Carol every year, can we? At the same time, can we go cold turkey and just walk away from this holiday classic? Nah…Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it. The Building Stage’s artistic director, Blake Montgomery, last year came up with this variation for presenting the famous Dickens story that ought to earn a place in theatergoers’ rotation of annual holiday shows. He plays off the fact that Dickens not only earned a bunch of cash for writing A Christmas 
Performing the same piece for over 170 years is bound to get a little tiring and that’s where the begrudging part comes in. Dickens tells us his preference is that the evening be simply a holiday party of which he’s the host – no performance, thank you very much. As the audience enters the bare-boned Building Stage theater, transformed nicely into an English parlor in Montgomery’s set design, Montgomery is in character (as well as in a most convincing costume and wig), and greets the audience by offering them tea and biscuits. He eventually announces his intention to be simply a good host, but ghostly spirits appear to conspire to force him to read the story after all. He resists for 15 minutes or so, with a good amount of improv and audience interaction, together with references to the Goodman’s big budget production of his story little more than one mile away. Even as he relents, Dickens/Montgomery infuses the reading with side commentary and riffs – like his mash-up of Hamlet with A Christmas Carol. For a time, he turns out the lights to tell A Christmas Carol as “a dark and scary” ghost story.
As Montgomery’s Dickens gets into his reading of the visit to Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Past, he and we start to get won over by the tale’s charms. Dickens explains how Scrooge, upon seeing the girl in his past to whom he was engaged, “starts to melt a little.” Later, he returns to the scene of the young Ebeneezer Scrooge left alone at boarding school over Christmas. He tells this out of sequence, ostensibly as if Dickens forgot to read it earlier, but really to place it later in the retelling and create the ;poignant image that starts to pull us in the story’s sentiment. His words, delivered with much compassion, are worth a thousand pictures in making us feel for the young Scrooge, and the emotional connection is built very sincerely through the visits of the ghosts of Christmas Present and Yet to Come.
Montgomery makes a charming host and keeps us smiling up until he lets the emotions of the story take over, when he reels us into the tale’s charms most effectively. Much of his comedy is improvised and interactive, with Montgomery moving through the audience at a number of points. Not all of his humorous bits land (and it takes a bit too long to actually get to the reading), but his 90-minute party keeps the crowd smiling and brings them firmly into the holiday spirit.
Rating: ★★★
Charles Dickens… continues through December 24th at The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter (map), with performances Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 4 & 8 pm and Sundays at 4 pm. Tickets are $15-$30, and are available online through BrownPaperTickets.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More info at BuildingStage.com. (Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Chelsea Keenan
artists
cast
Blake Montgomery (Dickens)
behind the scenes
Izumi Inaba (costumes); Emma Deane (lighting); Blake Montgomery (scenic design); Pamela Maurer (scenic artist); Nathan Wonder (stage management); Chelsea Keenan (photos)
12-1203
