ACT’s “Whynot Christmas Carol” is a why? why? why? NOT!
Dan Hiatt plays an actor named Phil playing a character named Ebenezer Scrooge contending with a puppet Ghost of Christmas Future in the world premiere of A Whynot Christmas Carol at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater through Dec. 24. Photo by Kevin Berne
The instinct to shake us out of our familiarity with Charles Dickens’ perennial life lesson, A Christmas Carol, is a good one. This sturdy story about nothing less than the redemption of humankind and finding the meaning of existence has been lobbed at us in every form, from books, movies with humans, movies with Muppets, animated movies, plays, musicals (film and stage), Hallmark rom-com variations, radio plays, prequels, sequels, murder mysteries, farces…you name it, and it’s probably been Scrooged.
American Conservatory Theater was understandably recognized as the Bay Area’s Carol authority, having produced two popular versions since 1976. So it’s easy to see why ACT’s powers that be were interested in shaking things up in the Ghost of Christmas Box Office department. Nearly 50 years of Carol-ing can make audiences awfully familiar – even to the point where they’re not really hearing or absorbing what Dickens and his ghost story really have to say about waking up to life and taking responsibility for yourself and your community.
Devin A. Cunningham is Chima and Colette “Coco” Brown is Bethel in A Whynot Christmas Carol. Photo by Kevin Berne
So ACT Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon and playwright Craig Lucas got to work on what became A Whynot Christmas Carol, which is now having its world premiere at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater. The idea is that a theater company in a town called Whynot is creating a new stage version of A Christmas Carol. We don’t know the exact circumstances of this theater company, which rehearses in what looks like a a rec center multipurpose room but performs in what looks like a fancy theater with fancy sets and effects.
The two-hour production begins with scenes from rehearsal and ends with the opening-night performance. The behind-the-scenes, making-of-the-play part of the show is confusing and insubstantial. The characters are barely sketched out, their relationships obtuse and the method of rehearsing a play seems odd to say the least. They just got scripts but many are already off book? The director is married to the leading man, but that relationship is…? Healthy? Competitive? Sour? Unclear. What we see of the actors is mostly unlikable, and quite often, the light and wisdom in the room is put in the mouth of the child who ends up playing Tiny Tim. God bless us, every one.
Catherine Castellanos (center) is an actor named Fran playing the character of the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Whynot Christmas Carol. Photo by Kevin Berne
From the rehearsal, we get rough, occasionally intense scenes from A Christmas Carol, and as the production goes along, the bare-bones rehearsal room gives way to more and more finished and fanciful sets and costumes (by David Zinn) and lighting (by Russell H. Champa). The scenes grow a little more complete, and the whole backstage element begins to factor less and less until that element is practically meaningless.
As a backstage drama, Whynot Christmas Carol doesn’t work, and as a new spin on A Christmas Carol, where Lucas seems to be trying to please or annoy everyone while trying (and failing) to avoid sentimentality, also ends up a puddle of figgy pudding with a stake of holly through its heart. The show wants to be modern and classic. It wants to honor pronouns and tantrums. It wants to be funny and scary and joyous and ends up being none of those things except fleetingly.
Great actors like Catherine Castellanos, Jomar Tagatac, Sara Toby Moore, Dan Hiatt and Stacy Ross do the best they can with what little they’re given, and the puppetry by Amanda Villalobos is impressive. But there’s no escaping that there are far better adaptations of A Christmas Carol, including ACT’s original version by Laird Williamson and Dennis Powers, which was grim and gritty and felt like an actual life-changing journey through a dark night of the soul.
How did a skilled director like MacKinnon and a reliable writer like Lucas come up with such a mess of a show that squanders the talents of some of the best actors in the land? Even the title and the growing chorus of “why not?” as the play goes on adds up to nothing but muddled intentions. Why not what? As the show keeps pointing out, change and transformation are hard, so perhaps the play’s failure ends up being its own best metaphor.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Craig Lucas’ A Whynot Christmas Carol continues through Dec. 24 at American Conservatory Theater’s Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours. Tickets are $25-$130. Call 415-749-2228 or visit act-sf.org.
