A Christmas Carol

Lumina Studio Theatre Group brings its special take on this classic holiday tale.

Charles Dickens wrote a number of Christmas stories, but this one is by far the best known and best loved. Countless dramatic adaptations followed its publication in 1843, including many by Dickens himself who performed solo stage readings of Scrooge, Tiny Tim and the Ghosts, as well as the myriad citizens of London who populate the story.

And what a story it is. Ebenezer Scrooge, embittered, miserly, self-absorbed, reforms his life thanks to ghostly visitors who make him aware of the misery he has caused and the opportunities for joy he has missed.

Dickens’s words jump off the page, a boon for the adaptor. Of the many screen adaptations, favorites include the 1951 film starring Alastair Sim and the joyous Muppet Christmas Carol of 1992. Our Lumina Theatre Group script is a new one, created for the Age of Zoom, a medium which imposes dramatic restrictions but also offers opportunities for our two-dozen-strong cast of all ages in portraying Dickens’s charity workers, pawnbrokers, laundresses and undertakers’ men in ways that do not require elaborate sets or complex crowd scenes.

It may be called A Christmas Carol, but it is, of course, by no means a Christian story. Its lessons instruct all of us in what it means to be a human being and the fact that we are all responsible for one another. “Charity, mercy, understanding and generosity – these were all my business” says Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s dead business partner who points to the fate awaiting the money-lender if he fails to heed the warnings he will receive from the three Spirits. But Marley’s words should stand as an admonition to us all at a time when too many people are focused solely upon their personal rights and too few take note of their public responsibilities. In a way, the hero of this story isn’t Scrooge; it’s timid Bob Cratchit with his love for his family, his courage in adversity and his determination to see the best in everyone. Bob has simple, common decency – and that’s a quality worth celebrating as we approach the new year.