Snarky or Scrooge?

Hello,
Well, the tree is up and trimmed out for the winter solstice, the mantle is decorated and to complete our day of Yuletide festivities- last night the Hubs and I went to a local University’s production of A Christmas Carol. 

Oh my, perhaps I am more of a purist than I thought…  I should have known when I thumbed through the Playbill and saw the directors note that listed they had “adapted and changed” the play… that it would be different. It was very different. And for a bunch of reasons… it kind of ticked me off.

Yeah, yeah community theater… and the children cast in any roles seemed to be pretty good, so were the actors playing Bob and his family. But there was some badly over acted parts… and I kept wishing for the amazing Patrick Stewart as Scrooge in the made for television version of A Christmas Carol… and damn but I missed him terribly.

In the, er…. interesting version we saw last night. The Ghost of Christmas Past kept aging… weird. She started as a little girl, then a woman then finally an old Crone who was loudly gasping and then died on the stage…  Thud and she was dead. Okay, thats different.

But hang on a second- It’s supposed to be the Ghost of Christmas Present that ages… and then I almost lost it when the Ghost of Christmas past came out and was a woman with a Jamaican accent.

To be fair she was a lovely black woman in a red cape and a bonnet and she was a fair actor… but the audience as one went, “Huh?”. And I just could not wrap my mind around the deviation from the original story. That, and I LOVE the traditional Holly King/Ghost of Christmas Present… I was so disappointed not to see him.

And maybe I’m turning into a purist when it comes to plays and classic like A Christmas Carol. So did we enjoy the play? Kind of. Was it fun to go out and do something to get in the spirit of the Holidays? Absolutely.

I have nothing but respect for the actors and the crew of the production… however I think that that grad student/director should not have messed with the classics. They are called the classics for a reason you know.

At least it gave us plenty to chuckle about on the way home. “Hey mon.” Said the Ghost of Christmas Present…. Oh I really don’t think so.

Maybe I’m being too snarky… or maybe I’m just a Scrooge when it comes to directors messing with the classics.
Blessed be, Ellen

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