Interview: Artistic Director John Johnston Talks Classical Theatre Company's A CHRISTMAS CAROL

In this interview, BroadwayWorld.com talks to Classical Theatre Company Executive Artistic Director John Johnston about what makes CTC's A CHRISTMAS CAROL so special.

Charles Dickens' 1843 novella is already special. It follows curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge to his reformation, thanks to a visit from several ghost: his former business partner Jacob Marley, the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Spirit of Christmas Present, and Spirit of Christmas Future.

Johnston and Classical Theatre Company Resident Company Artist Matthew Keenan adapted the unbeatable story, producing a much lauded production last season. Now, like Frosty the Snowman, the CTC adaption of the holiday favorite has returned for the winter.

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BroadwayWorld.com: A CHRISTMAS CAROL is one of my favorite stories of all time. I once wrote:

"[A CHRISTMAS CAROL's] wondrousness lies in its elasticity; the story lends itself to the extreme detail and verisimilitude of hyper-realism as well as the incredibility and brilliance only a master illusionist can achieve. It's eerie, horrific, majestic and exhilarating yet, almost inexplicably, a charming holiday classic suitable for the entire family."

How have you prepared for audience members for whom the story is so beloved, they must wax poetically about it for paragraphs?

John Johnston: The overwhelming response we received with this production when we originally produced it last year was that it was an offering of A CHRISTMAS CAROL unlike any you will see elsewhere in town (or many other towns for that matter). Dickens fans were thrilled to have so much of his language maintained in our adaptation. So, those with a love of the story will be pleased because it's all still there, and diehard Dickens fanatics will love it because his marvelous words are given their due.

Does Dickens' natural verbosity pose any challenges? Or is it pure pleasure?

John Johnston: Dickens' words are exquisite. We have done our best to preserve as many of them as possible. "Marley was dead to begin with" is right up there with "Call me Ishmael" for me. And though we did trim bits here and there (descriptions that could be acted out by performers, for example), we kept a vast majority of the novella. Thankfully, this was only a novella, and not, say, David Copperfield.

[Laughs] You've said that you want to get back to the roots of the piece. What does that mean?

John Johnston: Very often stage adaptations of A CHRISTMAS CAROL are encrusted with spectacle. It becomes about the smoke and the glitter and the story and words are secondary. I adapted this script with CTC company artist Matthew Keenan, and it was keenly important to us that we get back to the original text. We wanted to peel away the spectacle and make it about Dickens' famous words. So, there is not one line in the script that wasn't written by Dickens himself.

It is commonplace nowadays for stage productions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL to be children's' shows. While certainly our production is appropriate for children, it isn't produced for them specifically. This production is darker than your typical CAROL, because at its heart it is a ghost story. [Ebenezer] Scrooge is so frightened that he literally changes his entire outlook on life. So, to portray that we've made it dark and the elements lend themselves to a recreation of Dickensian London - which wasn't a particularly nice place to live. By creating this dark environment, the moments of joy and lightness really shine by contrast. It allows us to travel with Scrooge on his soul searching journey.

Getting back to the roots or the origins of a piece can produce many results. It can be a return to tradition that, depending on what is in vogue, is radical or conservative. (A traditional, brass-tacks version of a Shakespearean play may appear odd in contemporary theatre, for example.) What do you consider the Classical Theatre Company production to be?

John Johnston: As with most of our productions, our subject matter is quite conservative - plays and literature that are written at least 100 years ago. We adhere quite closely to the words that each playwright or author wrote down because that is what has survived through the decades, centuries, and even millennia.

Though, while our scripts would be considered conservative, I would say that our interpretation of the dramatic literature is more radical. At CTC, we look to provide never-before-seen qualities to these plays that so many in our audience already know. So, whether it is a gender-blind production of HENRY V or THE MERCHANT OF VENICE performed by prisoners in a WWII death camp, we do our best to mine surprises from these familiar plays.

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See the theatre gold and diamonds that Classical Theatre Company mined for A CHRISTMAS CAROL December 2 - 24 at Classical Theatre Company, 4617 Montrose Blvd. $10 - $30. 713.963.9665. classicaltheatre.org

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