PLAY GUIDE KATIE McFADZE N
BY
2015
IN
CHARLES DICKE NS
2016
About ATC ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Synopsis of the Play ................................................................................................................................. 2 Charles Dickens: Biography ..................................................................................................................... 4 Dickens and His Writing ........................................................................................................................... 5 Dickens’ World ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Behind the Scenes: An Interview .............................................................................................................. 10 Glossary of Theatre Terms......................................................................................................................... 12 Classroom Activities................................................................................................................................. 15 Chronology of Dickens’ Work .................................................................................................................... 16 Selected Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 17
SUPPORT FOR ATC’S LEARNING & EDUCATION PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY: APS
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ABOUT ATC Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company. This means that all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit. Eash season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage. In addition, ATC currently employs approximately 50 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew - the list is endless - representing am amazing range of talents and skills. We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community. Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets. Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially. All of this is in support of our vision and mission:
The mission of Arizona Theatre Company is to inspire, engage and entertain - one moment, one production and one audience at a time. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation. In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens.
The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Phoenix.
The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown Tucson.
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SYNOPSIS A Christmas Carol Written by Charles Dickens Directed by Matthew Wiener Featuring Katie McFadzen The story begins in Victorian London where Ebenezer Scrooge runs his counting house. Scrooge is a miserable, miserly old man who begrudges coal to his clerks and happiness to all. Christmas seems to make him even more miserable. He turns down an invitation for Christmas dinner from his nephew Fred and nearly denies Bob Cratchit, his hardworking clerk, the day off for Christmas. He returns home to his cold, dark house and settles in for bed. He is Katie McFadzen in ATC’s production of A Christmas Carol.
shortly awakened by a horrific sight – the ghost of his former
business partner, Marley. Bound in chains, Marley explains that he has come back to warn Scrooge to change his hard ways to escape the torment that Marley now suffers. Lest he not be convinced by Marley himself Scrooge will be visited by three spirits. The ghost disappears, and Scrooge falls back asleep. Scrooge is awakened by church bells. He thinks back on Marley's visitation. “Just a dream,” he decides, until he turns to discover a woman standing behind him. “Who are you?” he cries. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” she says, “and I am here to take you on a journey.” The ghost takes Scrooge by the hand, and they seemingly fly back in time, to a time and place when Ebenezer was young. He once again witnesses the loneliness and the happiness of his young years and relives the pain of giving up the woman he truly loved. The ghost leads him gently home to his bed. Excruciatingly awake, Scrooge awaits his next visitor. The visitor soon arrives, a big, jolly man who introduces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Present. He takes Scrooge on a journey, too, but not in time. They visit people and places that Scrooge knows now. Everywhere, everyone is celebrating Christmas. They stop in at Nephew Fred's party, and Bob Cratchit's Christmas dinner. Scrooge is especially touched by one of the Cratchit children, Tiny Tim. Although crippled and ill, Tiny Tim's positive spirit shines, and touches even a mean old man like Scrooge. 2
He asks the spirit about Tiny Tim's future. “I see a vacant seat at the chimney corner,” says the ghost, “and a crutch without an owner.” “No!” declares Scrooge. “Can't these things change?” “Living men may change them,” the spirit replies leaving Ebenezer home in bed with that thought. Next a frightful vision awakens Scrooge: A tall, silent figure shrouded in robes waits for him. Scrooge can only glimpse a hooded skull. “Ghost of the Future!” cries Scrooge. “I fear you more than any specter I have seen.“ The ghost reaches a bony hand toward Ebenezer, and the room fades away. Scrooge finds himself at a funeral – a strangely unemotional funeral. No one seems to mourn this death – no one has any kind words to say about the dead man. Scrooge begins to feel uneasy regarding the identity of the dead man. There is something familiar about him. Then he notices Bob Cratchit, kneeling by a grave – a small grave, just large enough for a child. The ghost points to another headstone: it bears the name of Ebenezer Scrooge. “Tell me these things can change!” Scrooge pleads with the spirit. “I am changed! What does Christmas tell us – if not that things can change? I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year! I will not shut out the lessons that you spirits have taught me!” Scrooge is suddenly back in his own bed – alone. Happy to be alive, he bounds out of bed, not knowing what to do first. He opens the window and shouts down to a boy in the street, “Tell me, my good lad, what day is today?” “Why, it's Christmas Day,” replies the boy. Ebenezer is overjoyed that the spirits worked so quickly. He can celebrate Christmas! He shouts to the boy to buy the big turkey in the butcher's window. Delighted with his plan to deliver the bird to the Cratchits, he pays them a Christmas visit and later shows up for Christmas dinner with Fred. Everyone is amazed and delighted by the change in him. Because of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge becomes a good man – one who knows how to keep Christmas well.
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CHARLES DICKENS: BIOGRAPHY Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He was the second of eight children born to a minor government clerk and his wife. Dickens' father was a poor manager of money and lacked the skills or opportunity to change jobs. He was constantly in debt and, as was often the case in England at that time, was sent to debtor's prison when he could not satisfy his creditors. Young Charles never forgot the pain of that period or the harsh lessons he learned by being sent off to work long hours at hard labor. Dickens vowed that someday he would change those conditions for himself and other young people. Thanks to a timely legacy, the Dickens family was able to get far enough out of debt to send Charles to school for two years. Following that he became an attorney's clerk and then a shorthand reporter for the courts. He learned much about poverty and crime in the city of London by attending police court as part of his job. Charles Dickens, 1867.
While working as a journalist, at the age of twenty-four, Dickens published his first amusing character essays, Sketches by Boz, in the newspapers. He was then commissioned, at the age of twenty-five, to write captions to accompany cartoons
about the members of a sporting club. Dickens instead wrote a series of stories about these bumbling club members that made everyone forget the drawings. These stories became the first chapter of The Pickwick Papers. Dickens became – at this time and for all time to come – the most successful popular novelist in the history of the English language.
Most of Dickens' novels were first published in serial form; one chapter would come out very month in a popular journal. People gathered in parlors, hotel lobbies and stores to wait for members of their family or group to return with one precious copy of the journal. All would gather around to hear the latest adventures of Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist or David Copperfield. In the United States groups would gather on the piers, waiting for ships from England to dock, calling to the journal sellers on deck to shout down a taste of the adventure to come. Thus Dickens could be enjoyed wherever people spoke English – even by those who could not read themselves.
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Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a colleague at the newspaper, in 1836. Although theirs was not a happy marriage, they remained together for twenty-three years, finally separating in 1858 with great sorrow. Dickens continued to write novels, essays and short stories all his life and occasionally tried his hand at the theatre. He also raised money for the first children's hospital and a foundling hospital. In 1847 he visited the United States and later returned here for very successful reading tour in which he charmed his audience with personal recreations of his great characters. Charles Dickens died, still a working author, on June 9, 1870.
DICKENS AND HIS WRITING Charles Dickens was the master of the novel in his day. For many years, other writers and literary critics found themselves so overwhelmed by his success and popularity that they could think of no other way to write and be accepted by the public. As a result, when other writers finally found new ways to write, critics began claiming that Dickens was old fashioned and silly and not to be tolerated by new writers and new thinkers in a new century. Fortunately, Dickens' works seem to have survived that generation of critics and come through it still appealing to greater and greater audiences of new readers. Let us look, then, at what keeps Dickens meaningful to people who have never lived in his world or his century.
Dickens’ Passion Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, reproduced from an 1870s frontispiece to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Fred Barnard.
Passion is not too strong a word for the genuine feelings that Dickens
brought to his characters and his plots. From his youth onward he was a champion of those who suffered poverty, homelessness and ignorance. His novels often center around the sufferings of children and those who are kept from education and kindness by the squalor in which they live. He often paints the mean, friendless villain whose store of riches cannot make him happy. A Christmas Carol's Ebenezer Scrooge is only one example of the misers whom Dickens could not tolerate; many times his characters learn to put aside their thoughtless, careless behavior when they themselves are visited by pain or disease or –in Ebenezer Scrooge's case – three ghosts who will not let him rest. 5
Another aspect of Dickens' passion which is very special is his ability to display joy in his characters. Many authors can paint heartless villains and show us terror, anger and fear. Few, however, have as much success making happiness, hilarity and great joy so exciting in a story. Christmas morning in A Christmas Carol is just such an episode – we all wait for the appearance of the boy whom Scrooge will question about the big turkey and in whom he will take such delight. We have such a good time as we see the shocked expression of those to whom Scrooge wishes a “Merry Christmas” when at meeting them last he cursed them with a “Bah, Humbug!” Dickens' Characters Perhaps no other author but Shakespeare has ever peopled his worlds with as great a variety of humankind as Charles Dickens. From the shy Barkus of David Copperfield who can never propose to his lady love, to Mrs. Sarey Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit whose mysterious friend “Mrs. 'Arris” never quite appears,
to the drunken, murderous Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist, to the haunting and mysterious heroine of Our Mutual Friend whose job it is to row her father through the Thames River as he searches for dead bodies, Dickens never stops surprising us with people who are odd or funny or just like us or terrifying in their capacity for evil. He finds no profession too strange to explore – a dustman, a taxidermist, a shroudmaker – and no man too ordinary to make our acquaintance. We spend happy time with a bootblack, a stagecoach driver, an Scrooge and Bob Cratchit from Dickens’ A Chrismas Carol. Illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. First Edition.
actor who plays a “Noble Savage”, and a young man too malnourished and
maltreated to ever develop beyond the state of childhood. Dickens never allows us to relax in stereotypes – anyone in any profession, any state of health, any level of wealth or poverty may be villain or hero –each of them is as individual as any new acquaintance we may make today.
Dickens' Narration One of the elements of Dickens' literary style which is most different from novelists who write today is the way in which Dickens enjoyed dwelling on words – wallowing in great mounds of them! He could write a sentence that was an entire page long. He could spend two paragraphs describing the making of Christmas punch. He was not anxious to tell the story as quickly as possible. He wanted his reader to enjoy the process of getting to the conclusion. In order to guide his reader through this happy mass of words, Dickens used a narrator who often spoke to the reader as though to a great friend, so one has the impression when reading a Dickens novel not so much of reading as of having a story told to them by some 6
benevolent, elderly uncle. The modern reader, not used to this leisurely rhythm, can approach it in different ways – he can impatiently thumb through this often humorous and descriptive storytelling looking for the next piece of action or he can sit back and enjoy the journey much as he would a warm and cushioned carriage ride in Victorian England. Dickens' Humor Perhaps nothing is harder to transfer from one period to the next than the jokes of the day. In order for a joke to be funny one week or one year or one century after it is first told, it must be about some basic human foible that is forever a part of human activity. The humor in Dickens that we still find funny today is humor based on characters who act foolish or silly in ways Bill Sikes from Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Illustration by Fred Barnard.
that remind us of ourselves. It is usually a joke of this sort that Dickens uses to bind us to his century and remind us that people have not changed.
Dickens' Wisdom One of the most often heard criticisms about Dickens has to do with his very happy endings and with the happy coincidences that unite long lost relatives, old lovers and parents and children. Some readers view the happiness of the Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol or the extreme benevolence of the Brothers Cherryble in Martin Chuzzlewit as “too good to be true.” When we look back at the life and career of Charles Dickens, however, we cannot believe in this naiveté. This is hardly a fit description for a boy who was banished to hard labor and poverty in a factory and whose young manhood was spent recording the activities of police courts. Seeing the scope of Dickens' characters, we realize that he made conscious choices as an author. He not only created heroes of exceptional bravery and goodness but also villains of amazing greediness and cruelty. Dickens wrote not only charming and fantastical scenes, but also passages of grim despair which are extremely bitter and painful. Perhaps the Fezziwig's Christmas party is brighter and happier than any we have been to, but so is Fagin's last night in his cell when he is visited by the worst demons of his imaginings – a greater horror than we have ever known. Dickens knew (and could further conjure for us) a great breadth of human emotion and behavior. He did not ask us to accept his characters only when we could fit them into our everyday world. Sometimes he asked us to step into the world of his imaginings, to take us on a greater adventure – meeting the people he wished could sometimes exist in the world we live in. 7
DICKENS’ WORLD Rulers and Leaders When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, Victoria was Queen of England (r. 1837-1901) and John Tyler was serving as President of the United States. London, the capital city of England, was – and had been for many years – the greatest center of population in the British Isles. England was a prosperous, still-expanding empire. Business and Industry The Industrial Revolution was well under way: the steamboat, the railroad and the telegraph were part of Dickens' world. There were, of course, no automobiles or airplanes or telephones yet, and the electronic wonders of the Queen Victoria, photographed by Alexander Bassano, 1882.
twentieth century were not even thought of. People traveled by carriage or coach or on horseback. Many people worked in factories, both large and small, and laws to protect children or other workers from long hours, harsh conditions and very bad pay were almost unheard of. The law punished criminals very severely, but left business and the arts almost completely alone. One of Dickens' complaints during his working life was that anyone could copy his work, change a word or two, and put their own name on it. He was not only angry that they would get the money from selling it, but that they would ruin its quality. Fashion and Decoration People dressed in many layers of clothes which were not designed for comfort. Women wore long skirts, stiff belts and jackets and high-buttoned shoes. Men had stiff waistcoats and tightly fitted jackets. Clothes were not easy to wash or clean and much time was taken in the making and repairing of garments. Children's clothes were no more comfortable, being mostly
Victorian women’s fashion, 1900s.
smaller copies of their parents' wardrobes.
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Entertainment and Family Conversation Victorian entertainment came from visiting friends or having them visit, or by dining out at a restaurant, or by going to the theatre or the opera or the pantomime. People spent more time talking to their families and friends than we do now, although the rules by which conversations were held were far different in those days. In a family the father controlled the conversation at dinner and afterwards. Young children usually ate earlier than the rest of the family in the kitchen or nursery and then were brought in to say goodnight and sent off to bed. Older children were expected to answer questions posed by their elders about the events of their day. In many homes a certain hour was set aside every evening for reading the Bible aloud. Victorian men’s fashion, as depicted in The Gazette of Fashion, 1872.
Reading aloud was a popular activity for an entire household to participate. In many homes Dickens' novels were first read or heard chapter by chapter.
Women had more privileges than their children, but were also expected to ask their husbands’ approval for any unusual activity or purchase. Everyone in the household had a certain role to play and was responsible for certain duties. Medical Care The concept of a doctor, nurse and hospital care were well established in Victorian times, but we would not recognize any of them today. Our standards of sanitation, sterilization and treatment of diseases has changed and improved with new technology. In Victorian days a doctor would know your family well, would come to your house to treat you, but would not have any of the wonderful drugs and antibiotics we have available today. It would also take him longer to get there; there would be no telephone to call him and there would be no health insurance provided by anyone’s employer to pay hospital bills. People relied more on old remedies and advice from their mothers and older family members. Care was lavished in a more personal way than we often find today, but the medical discoveries were very far from those of our century.
Toys and Games Dolls were very popular for little Victorian girls; they were more breakable than ours today, often being made of china and delicately painted. Rag and straw dolls could be dragged around by their feet, but they were then dirty and not very easy to clean. Many wagons and toy carriages were hand carved and painted and are very valuable today as antiques. Since workmen made games by hand they were truly “one of a kind” and seemed to have a personality all their own. 9
BEHIND THE SCENES: AN INTERVIEW During the busy rehearsal process for A Christmas Carol, ATC Literary Manger Katherine Monberg managed to snag a few minutes with Director Matthew Weiner and Performer Katie McFadzen, to garner some insight on the creative process. KM: Tell me a little bit about the adaptation process. How did the two of you go about crafting this particular script? Did you run into any surprises or challenges as the work progressed? MW: A Christmas Carol is one of the most-adapted pieces of English literature. There have been countless stage versions and many film and television adaptations. One of the reasons is that Dickens happened to write a wonderful story that people have made part of their holiday traditions. Scrooge is almost a “brand” that we enjoy visiting with each December. Dickens himself did “readings” of this piece. So we started with his version; we then looked for places to trim his “listmaking” (sometimes [Dickens gave] as many as eight examples of an idea, when three would suffice). Also, there were parts of the novella that he left out of his reading version which we restored (look for the “travels” section), and other parts that he included which we left out (bringing his bed clothes to the pawn shop is just not fun). As of this writing, we’ve met for many hours to edit the text but…I’m sure we will discover new adjustments in the rehearsal hall. KMcF: Ditto to Matthew's answer! KM: Where did the idea to craft a one-woman show out of the Dickens classic emerge, and what excites you most about this particular adaptation and production? MW: I believe the idea for a one-woman version came from David Ira Goldstein, the Artistic Director of Arizona Theatre Company. But there have been many productions with one [actor] before. Perhaps the most [famous recent version was performed by] John Patrick Stewart – he did it on Broadway for several holiday seasons. For me, the most exciting aspect of this production is to work with Katie McFadzen and discover her version of the story. When doing a one-person play of any sort, one of the most pleasurable aspects – at least for me – is watching a bravura performance from an extremely accomplished artist. KMcF: David Ira Goldstein approached me this past May about doing a one-woman version of A Christmas Carol and of course I said I’d be up for the challenge. I asked him about a script and he said there wasn’t one and that we’d just use the novella. To do the entire novella would take about three hours, so we knew we would need to edit. Matthew Wiener (who is directing) and I found an abridged version that Dickens used when he did public readings, and used that as a starting point. Over a period of about five weeks, we did a compare-and-contrast of the novella and the abridged version, did some cutting and adding, and ended up with what will be our script. The big acting challenge will be doing scenes where two or three characters are having dialogue. The rehearsal process is sure to be fun! We really want to focus on finding the humor in the story. Scrooge’s emotional journey and ultimate change will be exciting to explore. I'm also really looking forward to the audience being onstage in the Herberger's Center Stage. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out! 10
KM: Do you have a favorite character or moment that we should be sure to look for during the show? MW: One of my favorite moments in the show – which is left out of many adaptations – is during the Third Stave with the Ghost of Christmas Present. During the “travels” section, [the Ghost of Christmas] Present takes Scrooge on a whirlwind tour of all the faraway and forlorn places [in which] the holiday is being celebrated. I love the “swoosh” of this sequence, and the epic scope that comes into focus during this rather intimate encounter with a single person: Scrooge. KMcF: I have two: the scene [in which] Marley’s ghost appears in Scrooge’s room, because it’s suspenseful and funny, AND the scene where Scrooge’s fiancé releases him from their engagement. I think it’s heartbreaking and enlightening and really addresses Scrooge’s change from a person capable of loving and giving into a bitter person obsessed with money. KM: A Christmas Carol has been around for a long time, in many different versions and mediums, since Dickens wrote the original story. What do you think is the allure of this particular story, and why does it still speak to a contemporary reader/audience? MW: At its root, this is a story that celebrates the possibility of change. Through a series of encounters with the supernatural, Scrooge becomes a changed man and ultimately changes the lives of the other characters in the story – especially Tiny Tim. Why this story speaks to a contemporary audience and to audiences ever since he wrote it in 1843, is the universal idea that “change” is possible; that we can be willful creatures and chart our own path. That it is possible to change our own lives and in doing so, change the lives of those around us. That is a very powerful and important story to be telling from the stage. KMcF: Holiday tradition, first and foremost. So many people have at some point watched or read a version of this story. I remember seeing the movie as a child and being terrified of the ghosts. As an adult, I saw the stage version at Actors Theatre (several times). Surprisingly, I never read the novella until this past summer! I think there's allure in the supernatural and [in] the idea that we can change the future but not the past. For me, the allure is the message that we have the power within ourselves to live better lives and be better people. People have the ability to change their lives and in doing so can help change the lives of others. KM: Is there anything else you’d like to share about the play, the process, or the production? MW: Everyone is in for a real treat watching and listening to Katie McFadzen. She is simply a magnificent storyteller and I’m thrilled to help bring her performance of A Christmas Carol to our community. Come and see it! KMcF: I'm really excited to be working with Matthew again. We first worked together around 1994 at Childsplay and then in 2013 at Actors Theatre, so we've known each other a looooong time. I'm also excited about doing this show in rep with The Santaland Diaries. I just wish Ron and I could do some kind of mash-up of the two shows....hmmm, what would that look
like? 11
GLOSSARY OF THEATRE TERMS Act: The main division of a play. Most modern plays have two or three acts. There may be scenes within an act. Actor: A performer in a play; may be male or female, adult or child. Ad-lib: Making up a line not originally in a play. Done when an actor forgets a line or someone misses an entrance. Antagonist: The adversary of the main character; provides the obstacle the protagonist tries to overcome. Arena stage: Stage area placed in the center of a room with the audience seating surrounding it; theatre-in-the-round. Break a leg: A superstitious good luck wish exchanged by actors. It is felt that saying, “Good luck,” brings bad luck. Character: A person in a play created by the playwright and represented by an actor. Climax: The moment of highest tension or suspense in a play; the turning point after which all action moves to a resolution. Comedy: A humorous play that either offers a light, celebratory view of life or which makes its point through sharp ridicule and satire. Usually has a happy ending. Costumes: The clothes worn in a play – designed to fit the era, mood and personality of the characters. Cue: The last words or actions that come before another actor’s speech; a light, sound or curtain signal. Designer: A person who conceives and creates the plans for the scenery, costumes, lighting, sound, makeup, hairstyles, properties and other visual spectacle of a production. Dialogue: Conversations between two or more characters in a play. Director: The person responsible for initiating the interpretation of the play, enhancing that interpretation with the concepts of the designers and making all final decisions on production values; tells the actors where and when to move and how best to communicate the interpretation of the play to the audience. 12
Downstage: Front area of the stage, nearest the audience. Drama: The play script; the art of writing and staging plays; a literary art form different from poetry or other fiction. Exposition: Dialogue which gives the audience the background information it needs to follow the action of the play; most of it occurs early in the play. Directions on stage are given from the actors’ perspective; an actor walking toward stage right moves toward the lefthand side of an audience member who is facing the stage.
Improvisation: To make up as you go along; often used as a rehearsal technique to make the actors more comfortable with their characters; may be part of some performance situations.
Monologue: Long speech spoken by one actor without interruption. Motivation: A character’s reason for saying or doing something; the actor searches for this in his/her study of a role and uses voice and movement to interpret it to the audience. Narrator: One who tells the story; speaks directly to the audience. Plot: The story of the play. The playwright chooses the incidents that tell the story best and arranges those incidents to form the dramatic action of the play. Prop: Any movable item used on the set of a play or handled by an actor. (E.g., a can, a letter, a book, a vase, a suitcase.) Proscenium: A form of staging in which an arch frames the stage; the stage is at one end of a room and the audience sits in front of it, watching the play through the arch which frames the action. Protagonist: The main character; the person about whose success or failure the audience is most concerned. Proscenium arch in Chicago’s Auditorium Building, constructed in 1887.
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Rehearsal: The time period before a play opens involving practice of the dialogue, movement, rhythms and interpretation of the play. Scene: A division of a play representing a single episode or unit of action; subpart of an act. Scenic Artist: The painter or machinist who reproduces the scene designer’s drawing in full scale on the stage. Script: The written words and stage directions created by a playwright; the starting point of a production. Set: The scenery of a play; depicts time, place, mood. A Tony Award, designed by Herman Rosse in 1949.
Stage Business: Small pieces of action, often humorous, put into a scene to heighten its appeal or suspense.
Stage Directions: Information written into the play script that tells the actors when and where to move; often describes the mood or intent of the action; also may describe the scenery. Stage Left: Side of the stage on the actors’ left as they face the audience. Stage Right: Side of the stage on the actors’ right as they face the audience. Stage Manager: A person who coordinates all aspects of the production during the performance; runs the show. Theatre: A performance art which usually involves living actors telling a story through dialogue and action, often surrounded by visual spectacle that enhances the story further; the space in which such an art is presented. The spelling is theatre (from the French, usually preferred by practitioners of the art) or theater. Theme: A major principle of ethical precept the play deals with; a complex play may be concerned with several precepts, all relating to aspects of the human condition.
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Thrust Stage: A stage area set at on end of the room which extends out into the audience area; audience surrounds the action on three sides. Tony: Awards given annually by the American Theatre Wing for outstanding contributions to the theatre – officially the Antoinette Perry Awards. Tragedy: A play which deals with large issues of human values and ethics; most often associated with the great classical periods of drama (Greek and Elizabethan); its characters are usually kings and heroes whose fates effect whole civilizations. Most tragedies have endings that are unhappy for the protagonists but provide the fallen civilization with hope for the future.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES A note to teachers: this study guide is designed for a broad age range; some activities may be not be age-appropriate for your students. Before you see the play 1. Read A Christmas Carol (or teachers read it to the class) a. Play casting director: What stars or cartoon characters would you cast as Scrooge? As Bob Cratchit? Jacob Marley? Why did you pick those people? What characteristics do you see in each person that would suit one of Dickens' characters? b. Pick your favorite line from A Christmas Carol. Illustrate it. Why does that line make you see a picture? 2. Get a copy of The Annotated Christmas Carol. Have each class member pick one or two pages, and find a little known fact about Victorian times that applies to A Christmas Carol. How do these facts make the story more interesting? (See “Dickens’ World” for some interesting facts!) After you have seen the play 1. Write a review of this production of A Christmas Carol. What moments stood out in your mind? What characters/actors made a big impression? How do you describe your reactions?
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2. Write a "One Minute Christmas Carol". How do you get the point of the story across in one minute? How did you decide what was important? 3. Read Victorian ghost stories – Dickens' The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain would be a good choice. 4. Discuss the message of the play: change is possible. What makes people want to change? How can you change for the better? How can you change the lives of people around you? Further Topics for Discussion Public welfare and the common good: Poverty and homelessness now and then. Dickens today: Modern adaptations on film. Social services: Only prisons and workhouses? Victorian society: Lifestyles of the rich and the poor. Class Projects a. Do your own adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Update it – what job would Scrooge have today? Where would he live? Would he still see ghosts? What other types of "messengers" might work? b. Have a Victorian holiday party. Dress in the styles, try some of the recipes, and play Victorian parlor games.
CHRONOLOGY OF DICKENS’ WORK 1836
Sketches by Boz (essays)
1836-37
The Pickwick Papers (novel)
1837-39
Nicholas Nickleby (novel)
1937-39
Oliver Twist (novel)
1840-41
The Old Curiousity Shop (novel)
1841
Barnaby Rudge (novel)
1842
American Notes (travel essays)
1843
A Christmas Carol (short story)
1843-44
Martin Chuzzlewit (novel)
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1844
The Chimes (short story)
1845
The Cricket on the Hearth (short story)
1846
The Battle of Life (short story)
1846
Pictures from Italy (travel essays)
1846-48
Dombey and Son (novel)
1848
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (short stories)
1849-50
David Copperfield (novel)
1852-54
A Child's History of England (history)
1854
Hard Times (novel)
1855-57
Little Dorrit (novel)
1859
A Tale of Two Cities (novel)
1860-61
Great Expectations (novel)
1861
The Uncommercial Traveller (essays)
1864-65
Our Mutual Friend (novel)
1870
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (novel, unfinished)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Gissing, George. The Immortal Dickens. House, Humphrey. The Dickens World. Jackson, Thomas A. Charles Dickens: The Progress of a Radical. Johnson, Edgar. Charles Dickens, His Tragedy and His Triumph. Marcus, Stephen. Dickens from Pickwick to Dombey. Pearson, Hesketh. Charles Dickens: His Character, Comedy & Career. Wagenknecht, Edward. The Man Charles Dickens: A Victorian Portrait. Wilson, Edmund. The Wound and the Bow.
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