The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Invasion Christmas Carol’ is fun take on Dickens classic
Dad’s Garage puts weird spin on wellknown play, but improv makes it work.
‘Tis the season for Christmas tradition and its holiday plays. There are now dozens of productions of Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” running on stages all across town. Still, it’s a reasonably safe bet that only one will ever feature Ebenezer Scrooge crushing a beer and an entrance by a hot dog.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of “Invasion Christmas Carol,” currently running at Dad’s Garage through Dec. 29. The annual improv Christmas comedy show puts a new spin on the familiar story of the spiritual turnaround of the miserly, work-obsessed Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmastime.
Here’s how it works. Each year, the troupe at Dad’s Garage prepares a straightforward production of “A Christmas Carol” featuring all the usual suspects: Scrooge, the Cratchit family, Tiny Tim, Marley’s ghost, the supporting characters, and of course, the visiting spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. This year, director Amber Nash even gives the Victorian London setting an interesting and fittingly dark, threadbare, snowy look.
But each night, in keeping with the production’s concept, the director also introduces one ran
dom new character into the world of the show. “Invaders” at past shows have included Elmo, a T. Rex, Mrs. Claus, or the clown from “It.” The new character remains unknown to the rest of the cast until its first entrance in the middle of Act I. The cast must then improvise reactions and adapt the story so as to accommodate the actions of the new character into the plot. The results can be hilarious.
On opening night, the new character, performed by former Dad’s Garage artistic director Kevin Gillese, was a hot dog. And not just any hot dog. Though the costume was just a cheap foam Party City affair, the hot dog himself turned out to be a sort of touching and interesting character: a dippy, needy aging stoner, a former college buddy to the young Ebenezer Scrooge. As it turned out, Scrooge (played by Ed Morgan) used to be more fun, a real jam on toast actually, before he became a pennypinching businessman.
Much of the show’s delightful and surreal sense of play derives from its surface faithfulness to the original story: the plot barrels ahead as usual, though a hot dog (or whoever else) is now threaded throughout. The production elements, shticks and special effects walk a charming line between slick and chintzy, hoaky and genuinely scary, stupid and clever.
As in the original, the visiting spirits guide Scrooge through the various tableaux: Scrooge’s youth, the Cratchit household, and so on. Little is left out of this retelling, and in the end, “A Christmas Carol” plus a hot dog turns out to be a surprisingly long show. Very much to the company’s credit, things seldom get dull, but it’s worth noting that the show, with one intermission, clocks in at about two hours.
There are some great musical numbers, and the best jokes derive from the cast trying to gain their footing as the newly introduced character throws an unpredictable wrench into the plot: Sharp recoveries from stunned fumbles evoke the largest laughs.
There’s little in the show that could be said to be consequential — I’m already sort of forgetting about it — but in some ways that’s the charm. During the show, I forgot my troubles and the world outside and laughed a lot.
I happened to see the show over Thanksgiving weekend. The occasional stoner jokes, beer-drinking and ribald humor would usually mean this couldn’t be recommended as a “family show,” but there were actually a large number of families with older kids there. It struck me that, for the right sort of family, this is actually the perfect family show. The whole gang, oldest to youngest, genuinely seemed to be having a blast. Bless ‘em, every one.