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| The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Eric Stuhaug) |
The Trial of Ebenezer
Scrooge
Taproot Theatre
Through December 30, 2016
While everyone, likely, is overly familiar with A Christmas Carol and Ebenezer Scrooge’s
journey, playwright Mark Brown has come up with a twist that actually has some
funny moments in it with The Trial of
Ebenezer Scrooge. It sounds like Scrooge is on trial, but that’s not
exactly true. In fact, a year after his life-altering visits by ghosts, it
seems that crotchety Scrooge is back!
Scrooge (Nolan Palmer)
has decided to take the Christmas Ghosts and Jacob Marley to court on charges
such as trespassing, kidnapping, and assault! In a snappy presentation by
Taproot Theatre, there are moments to chuckle at while some absurdities are on
the docket.
Defense attorney Solomon Rothschild (Bill Johns) has all these clients to manage as well as Scrooge-like
Judge Pearson (Steve Manning). In
fact, the judge is more Scrooge-like than Scrooge in this version!
But the course of the trial is a sort of short recap of what
happened last year, so…just like the regular story. Scrooge gets to assert that
the Ghost of Christmas Past (an enchanting Anastasia
Higham) kidnapped him after she trespassed into his locked home. And Jacob
Marley (Robert Gallaher) is guilty
of stalking him!
Rothschild calls witnesses like Bob Cratchit (also Gallaher),
Scrooge’s sister Fan (also Higham), his nephew Fred (Daniel Stoltenberg) and maid Mrs. Dilber (Faith Bennett Russell) along with an assortment of others. (The
actors play several roles each in most cases, with Russell bringing some of the
most improbable fun with the randy maid!) The bailiff (Larry Albert) has to keep order of this chaos.
The script calls for running gags, including a major one for
the bailiff, that run out of steam after one go. Mostly, it all feels fairly
festive and funny, though not particularly innovative.
While I shall not spoil the small tidbits of surprise, the
main thrust of the message is that “Christmas spirit” should not be saved up
for only one day or even two a year. It’s a worthy message if a bit
bombastically told. Taproot likes to try to do something different for the
holidays each year, but there’s not a whole lot to choose from, so they’re repeating
this from 11 years ago.
It’s a game production from director Scott Nolte, with beautiful (and silly sometimes) costuming as
usual from Sarah Burch Gordon,
inventive lighting from Kent Cubbage
and spooky/funny sound design from Mark
Lund.
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