Review: CHRISTMAS CAROL at Kansas City Repertory Theatre

It is mid-holiday 2016 and the Kansas City Repertory Theater offers again their 35th annual retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The play, as performed in the Spencer Theater on the UMKC campus, is always a technical triumph.

The huge set rotates on a full stage turntable to flow one famous scene into another. The stagecraft and associated projections always seem to find a way to improve just a bit every year. Audiences cannot get enough of the timeless, familiar, annual odyssey of Ebenezer Scrooge and his three ghostly visitors.

This version of the Victorian classic is as revised by Barbara Field for the renowned Guthrie Theatre of Minneapolis. It remains an excellent selection and an annual tradition for many Kansas City families.

The performance begins as an effigy of the author appears downstage left. Charles Dickens is our narrator. He tells his story as he might have during his lifetime. In addition to being a popular author, Dickens often worked as a platform performer reading his own work from the stage. It is said Dickens was a favorite writer of Queen Victoria herself.

Dickens visited America at least twice over the middle part of the 19th century. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was in the audience on New Year's Eve in 1867 at New York City. Twain described Dickens as "a tall, 'spry' thin-legged old gentleman with a bright red flower in his button-hole... that queer old head took on a sort of beauty, bye and bye, and a fascinating interest..."

The well-known Kansas City actor Mark Robbins here capably portrays Charles Dickens. Robbins is fine in the part. The attention to detail is very nice including the make-up and hair. Robbins resembles how the author actually looked on his last trip to America when Clemens saw him. Dickens sets the scene, hands off to his live characters, and disappears only to reappear somewhere else in the theater when continuity is called for.

Returning as tight-fisted miser Ebenezer Scrooge is the excellent Gary Neal Johnson. Johnson has been part of "Christmas Carol" in 34 of its 35 productions at the KCRep. After playing the Dickens character for many years, he became the personification of Scrooge some 15 years ago.

Victor Raider-Wexler is a standout as Scrooge's deceased partner Jacob Marley. He appears from an elevator/platform from beneath the stage and sets up the play's action before vanishing in the dry ice cloud from whence he came. Andy Perkins is Scrooge's woebegone clerk and eternal optimist Bob Cratchit and deserves all credit for being the role model we have come to expect.

This production is always outstanding for its portrayal of the "Ghost of Christmas Present." He somehow stands about 12 feet tall and is limber enough to circle the audience while spreading good cheer and magic dust throughout the rows. The ghost is Rusty Sneary.

And what "Christmas Carol" could exist without Tiny Tim? He is double cast here as DomiNick Adams and Finnegan Jones. God bless them each and every one.

This version of "Christmas Carol" is not a musical, but music and sound are intrinsic to the entertainment. There is some caroling when appropriate on stage and in the lobby by the entire cast as the audience leaves the theatre.

To all those who love Christmas and good theater, "Christmas Carol?" runs through Christmas Eve, December 24. Tickets are available on the KCRep website or by telephone at 816-235-2700.

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