A radical take on Dickens
S. F. Mime Troupe’s ‘ A Christmas Carol’ adaptation hews to story’s activist heart
Maybe for you, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a cherished, nostalgiainspiring tradition.
For playwright and director Michael Gene Sullivan, it’s a radical, proworker text — which makes it perfect fodder for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
Fresh off the Tony Awardwinning company’s summer radio series, “Tales of the Resistance,” the Troupe is adapting Dickens’ novella into a radio play that begins streaming Friday, Dec. 11, starring Mike McShane as Ebenezer Scrooge. The Chronicle spoke with Sullivan, a longtime Troupe collective member and a former actor in American Conservatory Theater’s version of “Carol,” about emphasizing the story’s revolutionary qualities.
Q: How’d you get the idea to adapt “Carol”?
A: I’m one of those people that actually reads it, pretty much every year. I like the language of it. It’s a great little ghost story. But also, it is very much an activist’s story, and that’s what people miss about it.
Q: Miss how?
A: I remember one time doing “Christmas Carol” at ACT — I was in the lobby collecting money for Equity Fights AIDS. ... Somebody came up and in passing said, “How dare they ask for money after a show like this.” I was like, “How did you get that message?”
Q: When did you start writing?
A: I started working on it about a decade ago. There’s two versions. This is the radio version, which is brandnew. The stage version had its first reading at Occupy Oakland on Christmas Eve ( in 2011). We’ve been doing readings of the show ever since.
Then, after the success of “Tales,” I proposed to the company, “Can I work on a radio version of ‘ Christmas Carol’?” and they were like, “Yes!”
Q: What do most other “Carol” adaptations miss?
A: I see productions of “A Christmas Carol” where they start off, “Oh, it’s wonderful London, and everybody’s having a good time! Even the poor people are kind of happy!” And that is not what Dickens wrote. Dickens wrote that Scrooge is representative of a mindset. If you make this just a story about this one bad guy, you’re not challenging the audience, because the audience can go, “Well, I’m not as bad as Scrooge, so, therefore, I’m fine,” and they can leave the theater and see the homeless that are right outside and ignore them.
Later in the play, the Cratchits are always this fun family — they’re poor but happy! I really break it down and go, “What does that poverty mean? Why are these kids so happy?” Because it’s the one day of the year when they might leave the table not hungry.
Q: I love this line in your adaptation: “When I say his name, y’all just think ‘ Ebenezer Wells Fargo/ Goldman Sachs/ Bank of America Scrooge.’ “Why was that important to say?
A: I wanted that to be, “It’s not just this old story, and he doesn’t have a job that doesn’t impact my life every day.”
I didn’t exactly update ( the story), but I’m using traditional labor tunes that were written to the tune of Christmas carols and hymns to make this very clearly a story about the workers.
This is a story about what we accept, what we need. If you look at the regular story, it’s very much about Cratchit and that point when Scrooge goes from a worker to an owner. He’s happy when he works for Fezziwig, and Fezziwig is a good employer. He’s not a boss; he’s an employer. When Scrooge starts making a shift to being an owner, he steps outside of society. He’s not using any of what he’s gained to be helpful or even be a part of the world.
Q: So is the Mime Troupe going to make me question my warm and fuzzy feelings about Christmas?
A: I guess it depends how warm and how fuzzy the feelings are. We live in Dickens’ Christmas. We live in a Christmas where you care about the poor. This is why all of these wonderful nonprofits ask for money at Christmas. They know that this is the time of year when we want to be our best selves. This whole idea of a season of sharing and giving — that’s the warm and fuzzy part, and that’s the part we need to hold onto and expand.