ROUGH TIME FOR SOME
Offering tips for managing grief during the holiday season.
Careful how you stack the books at your bedside. A Charles Dickens short story and “The Illustrated History of Connecticut” had a child, and it’s at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre in Chester through Dec. 30. “A Connecticut Christmas Carol” opens with Robert Cuccioli playing an eminent actor of a century ago, William Gillette, whose castle homestead is now a tourist attraction mere miles from the Goodspeed. Gillette says he’s graciously agreed to play the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” as a farewell gift to Mr. William Goodspeed shortly before the closing of the original Goodspeed Opera House in the 1930s.
Inexplicably, it’s also announced that Dickens’ story will be set in East Haddam and Hartford, and that key characters will be replaced by Nutmeg state celebrities of yore.
Benedict Arnold is the spirit of Christmas Past. P.T. Barnum is the spirit of Christmas Present and Mark Twain is the most loquacious spirit of Christmas Yet to Come that you’ve ever seen. Scrooge’s fantasy funeral scene is set at the Griswold Inn in Essex.
All three Nutmeg-approved spirits are played by the same effervescent, beady-eyed, impish actor: Michael Thomas Holmes. A fresh-faced 10-person ensemble (among them Samantha Bruce, who played Laurey in “Oklahoma!” at the Goodspeed Opera House last year) play townsfolk, relatives, classmates, circus clowns and many other minor roles.
The musical’s creators LJ Fecho and Michael O’Flaherty have endless fun with the Connecticutcentric concept. Local references are dropped with the frequency of snowflakes. One of the miserly money-collector’s phone calls begins “Mr. Lyman, this is Ebenezer Scrooge. If you don’t want to lose your farm…” Characters named Wadsworth and Sikorsky talk of partying with the Colts, Bushnells and Morgans, and of visiting Sage Allen, G.Fox and the Rialto Theater. You half expect Scrooge to mutter “Bah! Higganum!”
This adaptation of Dickens’ story seriously ups the amount of time the Cratchit family gets on-
stage, and turns Scrooge’s sour attitude into high crimes, directly blaming him for Tiny Tim’s death (from polio).
This Scrooge is indeed scary. The last time we saw Cuccioli mussing up his hair on a Connecticut stage, it was with the pre-Broadway tour of the musical “Jekyll & Hyde.” For this show, Cuccioli greets us cheerfully as William Gillette, then sits at a makeup table, shakes powder onto his head, teases his hair until it’s wild and scraggly, and transforms into a meanspirited miser before our eyes.
“A Connecticut Christmas Carol” is a Goodspeed project, and the show’s composer Michael O’Flaherty has been the Goodspeed’s resident music director for more than a quarter of a century, so the orchestra, while small, is tight and strong. The arrangements are keyboard-heavy but there’s also a harp in there. The songs are restricted by having to serve the jolly seasonal mood. Most of them are serviceable replacements for Christmas carols, with titles like “It’s the Season,” “God Bless Us, Every One” and “Behold!” The game-changer is Scrooge’s post-visitation solo number “It Nearly Worked,” where the old skinflint easing from self-denial into self-awareness and self-help homilies. The number is highly reminiscent of Cuccioli’s “Jekyll & Hyde,” not to mention his Javert in “Les Miserables.”
The rest of “A Connecticut Christmas Carol” is standard joy-of-Christmas stuff. Framed by colorfully painted backdrops and animated by the cheery smiles of the ensemble cast, the show verges into tacki- ness and campiness. Director Hunter Foster, who helmed another earnest effort at self-aware theatricality for the Goodspeed this year – “The Drowsy Chaperone” at the Goodspeed Opera House – knows how to maintain a mood and keep things moving quickly.
It’s important to note that the Goodspeed still sees “A Connecticut Christmas Carol” as “in development.” Between last season and this one, some new songs and dialogue have been written, one of the ghosts has changed to a completely different historic personage (Harriet Beecher Stowe, we hardly knew ye), and Cuccioli apparently offers a markedly different interpretation of Scrooge than did Lenny Volpe, who played the role last year.
This “Christmas Carol” hasn’t quite found itself yet. It’s hamstrung by conventions set by the zillion other adaptations of this classic tale (the spinning bed comes late in the game, but it comes) and struggles to distinguish itself. But it unquestionably delivers good cheer.
Holmes is a hoot as the trinity of Christmas spirits, Cuccioli is an inspired Scrooge and it’s wonderful to see the Norma Terris Theatre lit up in wintertime. A CONNECTICUT CHRISTMAS CAROL runs through Dec. 30 at the Norma Terris Theatre, 33 N. Main St., Chester. Performances are Wednesday at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday at 2 p.m., with an added 2 p.m. matinee on Dec. 20, an added Sunday 6:30 p.m. performance on Dec. 23 and a Christmas Eve matinee at 2 p.m. on Monday Dec. 24. There is no performance on Dec. 25. Tickets are $25 to $60. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.