A Christmas Carol: Traversing Reality And Hope

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community...I rejoice in life for its own sake..." George Bernard Shaw

Theatre Calgary staged the Cherished Holiday classic A Christmas Carol, originally written by Charles Dickens and adapted for the stage by Geoffrey Simon Brown, at the Bell House Theatre from Nov 29 to Dec 29. The play follows the existential and spiritual travails of Ebenezer Scrooge. He is guided by the visitations of three apparitions, the Ghost of Christmas Past, present and future. As is made clear to us through the play, Scrooge understands the external world of forms and numbers all too well; the calculative rationality through which he appraises the world is mechanistic and desolate. He exhibits a perverse form of economic reductionism, where the subtle interplay of the sacred, communal and kairotic (denoting a seizing of those moments in life that are suffused with radical love, meaning and transformation) give way to a desiccated worldview. In Scrooge’s reality every relationship, moment and gesture is flattened into transactional terms. He adheres to a rugged form of individualism, prioritizing utilitarian efficiency over the profligacy of empathy. The play abounds with theological themes of redemption, grace, hope, compassion, and divine love. Dickens sought to secularize these themes to underscore the universal essence of our humanity, compressing Christian or theological ideas into an ethical framework available to everyone in the social collective. The Ghosts compel Scrooge to revisit the traumatic basis of his behaviour (past), the iniquity and poverty that his worldview perpetuates (the present) and the absolute indifference, and in some cases, liberation (he is a creditor after all) people experience with his demise in an imagined future. By the end of all the spectral visitations, we see Scrooge become a thoroughly reformed man; social altruism now seems to take the place of economic egoism, and with the transmutation of Scrooge, we leave the theatre with the warm comfort that even the cruellest of environments (the harsh Victorian era, constituted of crushing inequalities and ruthless mechanization) have actors in it that experience a profound capacity for transformation. Dickens invites us to believe that the arc of redemption can bend for Scrooge and society at large, it is a heartwarming and ennobling vision of social rejuvenation, one that potentially speaks to whatever age we are situated in.

Let’s be honest, though. Is any of this true? More importantly, does it obfuscate some of the burning questions that have informed our increasing social and cultural pessimism around wealth, social action, and the individual basis of cultural charity? It must be made clear here, as I will explain below a little later, that this was a marvellous production, full of the bells and whistles that have made the Christmas Carol a marquee production for Theatre Calgary, replete with highly impressive production values and good performances. The point I am making is whether the play says anything to us about the Zeitgeist we currently inhabit. Does it speak to the collective anxieties of our age? One marked by what has been called a fin de siècle, historically referring to the cultural disillusionment at the end of the 19th century but finds contemporary relevance in our post-covid world. Mark Fisher, in his book Capitalist Realism, makes the argument that modern economic structures have incapacitated our collective imagination in conceiving alternatives to our existing systems and symptoms. We know something is wrong, and we feel with an almost oppressive clarity the toll that these systems have taken on our social psyche, corroding trust, and leaving us with the impression that these systems are utterly inescapable. Modern economic systems have, according to Fisher, co-opted most of our economic and social conversations, they have become commodified and absorbed by the very systems they seek to question and challenge. Seen through the cultural fatalism of Fisher, Ebenezer Scrooge risks becoming a perverse ideological device, injecting the audience with the psychological morphine that personal transformation can repair the systemic depravities of our institutions. The question is also whether his change is truly transformative, all we have are the declamatory and emphatic statements he makes at the end of the play signalling his change, but what of the myriad of debts on his ledger? Where and when will the limits to his empathy for precarious class formations be encountered? I must admit, this is part of the story I would certainly love to see – something of a sequel, A Christmas Foreclosure, where we see Scrooge contend with the limits of charity in financial ecosystems that resist economic forgiveness and clemency. Maybe it is in this imagined sequel that we would see Scrooge’s redemption being no match for the forces of institutional avarice that Dickens so insightfully critiqued. A historical example of this may be seen in Muhammad Yunus’s micro-financing lending schemes in Bangladesh. Through Grameen Bank, interest-free loans were dispensed to Bangladeshis, especially women, to lift them out of a state of impoverishment. The idea was certainly successful and did have a tangible and constructive effect on millions of Bangladeshis, but it met the limits of its success when, for political reasons, the governance structure of the bank was re-configured by the government. Bureaucratic management and political vigilance now took the place of the grass-roots emancipation and autonomy that the loans were designed to create. The eventual dismantling of community-led initiatives such as these underscores something rather sobering- transformative ideas are deeply vulnerable, especially when they come into contact with deeply entrenched institutional structures.

Regarding the temporal dimensions of the play, past, present, and future - could they also be seen as an ideological device that localizes moral responsibility at the level of individual action and obscures the influence of ideological pressures in maiming human morality? Putting too much of an accent on Scrooge’s transformation potentially commoditizes the idea of redemption – can morality and charity thrive within the same inhumane ecosystems that necessitated them?       

As seductive as the pessimism that such an analysis may breed is, it has its limitations. If the play shows us anything it is that cynicism potentially breeds the conditions for cynicism. It can perpetuate the conditions for its endurance, creating psychological temperaments that see minor acts of hope and charity as utterly futile and inconsequential. The nihilistic dismissal of hope potentially creates a sort of spiritual inertia, a profound despair that mirrors the theological idea of acedia. A deep despondency of the soul, a self-denying listlessness that sees no grace in the everyday demonstrations of kindness, felicity, and charitable succour. This is not to deny the legitimacy of the rage and frustration behind such a state, but more so to acknowledge that such a frustration presents to us several risks that would trap us within the limits of its circular logic. Such logic may unwittingly become and remain complicit in the very conditions it ostensibly seeks to challenge. The example of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s chilling character Pyotr Stepanovich (Novel – demons) comes to mind here, embodying a brand of idealism replete with Machiavellian urges to orchestrate systemic institutional destruction no matter the human cost. He wields a dark brand of idealism, one that sees no hope in the existing social order, hence seeking to heap it onto the great fire of nihilistic obliteration, sacrificing human lives and the entirety of the social order in pursuit of an imagined future, one entirely liberated from the perceived compromises of the present. Pyotr in some ways mirrors the unredeemed Scrooge, both reduce the complexities of humanity to cold and turgid abstractions, the former through revolutionary logic and the latter through hyper-reductive economic logic. Where Pyotr would annihilate his kind in the name of a merciless revolutionary zeal, Scrooge would do it through a ruthless form of economic self-preservation. Both alternatives, expressed at the level of ideological assembly, are terrifying.  

There are of course no clear answers or solutions to these questions, not to the writer anyway, but a hallmark of a good production is in creating ideational spaces, fostering cognitive environments where ideas and all the uncertainties around them take shape. This production certainly did that, with gentle finesse.

The production values were stellar. The Christmas Ghosts were dramatized with inventive choices, complemented with modular sets and gorgeous lighting. The aesthetic choices were thoughtful, coordinated, and congruent with the artistic vision behind this production. The production comes together as an organic whole, with each element blending into each other creating a thematically unified experience for the audience. The lighting brought out the psychological vitalism of each scene, projecting Scrooge’s inner journey onto the stage and back onto us with sensitive efficiency. Achieving harmony between the depth of the narrative and the elements used to bring it to life is never easy, integrating all of those dimensions of the mis-en-scene into an interplay of lighting design, spatial dynamics and thematic symbolism in a way that effectively amplifies narrative depth. Scott Reid’s ability to adapt spatial configurations to the psychological élan of the narrative was surgical. Kevin Lamotte’s lighting design infused the production with panache, balancing the illuminations and the shadows on stage with masterful effect, evoking both the metaphysical potential of the play and the complex subjectivity of Scrooge. Deitra Kalyn, through her costumes, created an immersive environment that reflected the historical epoch of the Victorian era. Through meticulous attention to period-appropriate silhouettes and intricate detailing, she captured the essence of the time, deeply enhancing the texture of the narrative. Doug McKeag as Scrooge was effective, playing it with the right amount of irritable energy and inflecting the role with wry humour, this cannot be an easy character to play because the polar transformation from being perpetually irate and bellicose to being ebullient and emitting spiritual radiance after the character’s transformation requires a subtle ability to convey those psychological shifts while maintaining enough believability, and more importantly depth, in both extremes. Doug, even when presenting Scrooge as contemptuous in the first half of the play, leaves room for transformative ambiguity, in other words, he imbues the character with very small glimpses of vulnerability, tactically suggesting that Scrooge is open to redemption. He primes us to believe in the plausibility of Scrooge’s ultimate transformation, making Scrooge’s eventual journey at the end feel organic and well-earned. It was a solid performance. The ghosts of Christmas past and present were distinct and memorable, embodying their symbolic essence with visual and emotional clarity. Kelsey Verzotti played her characters with effortless charm and ease. Joe Perry as a young Scrooge, vividly portrays the psychological hardening of Scrooge, where his ideology starts to hijack and overshadow everything else in his life. That being said, even during this development of the character, we still see traces of redeemability, both Doug and Joe align their performances, ensuring that the character arc is cohesive and believable across the temporal divide of the past and the present. Jesse Rob does an incredible job with the choreography, creating a festive spectacle on stage, the collective harmonization of the characters during Mr. Fezziwig's party captures the unbounded spirit of joy that binds communities through dance. It was rapturous. Jane McFarlane does a great job of ensuring that everyone dons a British accent (the new paradigms of theatre and performance place less of an insistence on this, but always good to see in historical pieces) creating a phonic environment that enhances the historical texture of the drama. Marc Bellamy as Mr. Fezziwig, exuded a powerfully nurturing and sensitive spirit, it was a short appearance by the Character but Marc infused it with incredible nuance and dynamism. Daniel Wong as Fred (Scooge's nephew) was affable and created a character that was brimming with innocence and playfulness. Allison Fynch as the fiddler on stage, was the archetypal equivalent of the musical oracle, shaping the audience’s psychological journey through the narrative. The archetype provides resonance and foresight, playing the harbinger of transitions. Her music prefigures and amplifies, a liminal figure who shapes the emotional architecture of the play and guides us through the temporal ebb and flow of the narrative. It was an outstanding performance. The young cast was lovely, emitting a radiance that only the young can, showing us that even in the most brutalizing of personal circumstances, children have a way of replenishing communities with joy and meaning. In this play, and in our collective social realities, children possess a radical ontological function, symbolizing life’s resistance to entropy, awakening the communal memory of possibility. The direction reflected a keen insight into the importance of unifying the ideational themes in the play, this is never easy and is the result of sustained thought and introspection. This is quite possibly one of the rare times that I have seen a director, in Calgary, do this with incredible efficiency and aplomb. This polemical critic tips his hat to Stafford Arima.  

Some things I think were off balance – Marley’s dramatization was, well, dramatic but seemed inconsistent to the general tenor and texture of the play. Marley is a dark portent, a figure who (within the aesthetic logic of the production presented to us) should have embodied a sense of dread. The portrayal lacked sinister gravitas, it came across as a great piece of medieval theatre, certainly very impressive in its own right but operating at a slight disconnect from the thematic boundaries of the production. Something darker and more psychologically harrowing might have been required to embody the spectrality and psychological terror that Marley potentially represents. The scenes between young Scrooge and Belle were generally very good, but the final scene, where Belle leaves Scrooge because of his hard-headedness, missed the affective impact that was needed. This is quite a crucial part of the play and in some ways is a dramatic fulcrum, this is where the audience is to feel the weight of Scrooge’s moral and emotional decline. Plotting this scene out with more performative consideration and nuance would have certainly elevated the emotional resonance of the moment. This would have amplified the stakes of Scrooge’s redemption.     

To return to the opening theme of the article, does the play say anything about the Zeitgeist that we are in? To the writer, yes, emphatically so. The message of Dickens endures as a timeless representation of the interdependence of communal and individual renewal, a trans-ideological truth that addresses the core of what it means to build the foundational conditions for grace and forgiveness. A testament to the strength of the community around Ebenezer is that people are waiting for him to arise from his moral stupor, the Cratchits and Fred accept him into their fold, never deriding him once he seeks forgiveness. Here Dickens shows us the prototype of a healthy community, one that rejoices in life for its own sake and creates spaces for the broken, offering them a chance to rebuild, redeem and renew.

For Dickens, personal transformation is not found in dogmatic and ideological manuals that schematize human life through disembodied abstractions but in the messy and human act of reconnecting with others. Redemption is as much about the courage required to undergo a personal and painful journey of rehabilitation and the communal grace required to be welcomed back. This production invites us to see this process not as some extraordinary feat of human agency and kindness, but rather as the essential work of being human.

 Final Rating – 8/10