A Holiday Classic is Delightfully Reimagined!
By Stan Jenson
When new theatre companies arrive in our Valley, they frequently say that they plan to elevate the standards currently displayed in the area, making The Coachella Valley a theatre destination unto itself. When the founders of Revolution Stage Company made that claim to me, I jotted it down in my notes and said to myself, “We’ll see.” With their current production of Charles Dickens Writes a Christmas Carol, they have absolutely achieved their goal. I would gladly drive from Los Angeles to see this show.
A Christmas Carol is right up there with The Nutcracker as a seasonal fixture. It has name value and is rather easy to produce (often without royalties), but this reimagined telling of the tale simply sparkles from beginning to end. Part of it is the adaptation by Scott Palmer. Charles Dickens (very authentically played by James Owens) starts the show surrounded by six muses, a ragtag collection of Victorians who gleefully shout out suggestions for Dickens’ effort to write a Christmas book. As the story takes form, the muses portray the characters they have just concocted.
I can’t go any further without giving unbound praise to Laura Stearns for her direction. The pacing is at the speed of a rollercoaster, and the movement more choreography than blocking. As Dickens wanders around the stage, the muses follow him like a tail, then quickly scatter to various points of his office. As they seem to move randomly around the stage, they always stop in a perfectly composed picture. Though it seems natural and delightful, a moment’s reflection reminds us that this is the result of hours of planning and coaching.
As the story takes on a momentum of its own, Dickens often leans against the proscenium and lets the characters tell the story, occasionally jumping in to reinforce a plot point or to describe a new setting. Again, Owens’ characterization of Dickens is an equal to the other six characters acting out his story. His physical likeness to Dickens cements the characterization.
One of the muses, played by Jason Mannino, quickly becomes Ebeneezer Scrooge, a role he retains through the remainder of the play. Mannino’s characterization is an epiphany – sometimes the requisite stingy old curmudgeon, but then very convincingly a human being, frustrated, frightened, questioning of his own behavior and the activities going on around him. Following his recent tour-de-force as Oscar Wilde in Gross Indecency, Mannino is quite the actor to look forward to these days.
The remaining muses -- Eliza Faloona, Adam Hieter, Heather Joy, Rebecca McWilliams, and Samuel Moffatt -- are all strong, effective, and believable. It’s rare for a local production to not have at least one actor limping along at least a little slower than the others, but director Stearns’ work has created a collection of characters that function together with the efficiency of a Swiss watch. It is that group effort that creates the spine of this production.
There are occasions when the company breaks into song with familiar carols, usually following much banter and argument as to which carol to sing. The fact that they can achieve acapella harmonies after one character starts a song is an accolade to the skills that have been brought together here, a synergistic troupe made up of seven talented performers.
Emma Bibo’s costumes are very clever with each actor having a basic Victorian outfit, then changing it with scarves, coats and hats as they take on different characters. Linda Shaeps’ wigs and makeup further enhance this fluidity. Kudra Wagner supplies props which work wonderfully with Laura Stearns’ sets. Through careful thrift shop scouring, they have created a series of very convincing sets which are really brought to life by Nathan Cox’s excellent projections on the theatre’s upstage video wall. His projections give great depth to the locales and can change instantly. Cox also serves as stage manager and sound designer. Mariah Pryor’s lights are effective and re-direct our visual focus quickly. Zoey Sanchez, Emma Bibo, Kelly McGuire and Sara Snow operate technical elements of the production (and perhaps one of them actually appears onstage.)
Revolution Stage Company is indeed a revolution, usually offering a number of different entertainments during any given week. Their website has a calendar where you’ll see the performance times of their mainstage productions, such as Dickens. You’ll also see cabarets, celebrity acts, piano singalong nights and a wide variety of entertainments. By clicking on any listed event, you are immediately directed to the box office.
Next month they will present their first production of a “standard” show when they present the award-winning Avenue Q, directed by James Owens. Most of us have seen that show more than once, and it will be exciting to see if this adventurous company can breathe new life into it. I will sure be betting that they do!
Dickens Writes a Christmas Carol plays until December 23. In January, Avenue Q will be alternating days with the enjoyable Midcentury Moderns. Notice that unlike any other Valley theatre, they include Saturday matinees and full performances most nights of the week. For those of us who try to cram our selected shows in during the weekend, this schedule gives us a breath of relief. Dayna Steele’s much-anticipated play, The Woman in the Mirror, is also scheduled for 2024 and the popular singing group, A CABELLO, will perform at the RSC in March, 2024.
For more information and to purchase tickets to Revolution’s plays or special events, go to the Web site, at www.RevolutionStageCompany.com. The theater is located at 611 S. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs, in the same shopping center as the Palm Springs Revivals.
PHOTOS: Kai Brothers and Alan Carvalho