Review: Christmas in January for Lit Moon's HUMBUG

Is it Twelfth Night Yet? (That's a little Shakespearian humor to dispel the awkwardness of writing about Lit Moon's Humbug two weeks after Christmas.) 'Twas the season for A Christmas Carol and I'll admit it: I'm a winter Dickens fan, even in Santa Barbara, when winter is almost indistinguishable from fall, summer, or spring.

I'm actually an all-year Dickens fan; I enjoy the dark peculiarity of his characters and his use of karmic comeuppance as salient plot points. With a heavy emphasis on the harrowing bleakness of poverty in Victorian England, Dickens' work reflects a dichotomous social experience that is relatable today: the seemingly inescapable struggle of the impoverished citizens as compared to the (oft vilified) wealthy class that (sometimes gleefully) takes advantage of members of its lower-class counterpart. This is certainly a robust thematic element in A Christmas Carol, and, despite the harsh, self-imposed isolation of the main character (misery that is resolved via the adoption of a more traditional morality system), Dickens' novella has remained a festive, cultural favorite in America for over 150 years.

I, too, enjoy Ebenezer's annual redemption as a tradition of the holiday season. Scrooge sheds the blustery winter of his greedy, petulant personality and grows into a more generous spirit after being enlightened of his adverse effect on the world by three omnipotent spirits. While I don't particularly relate to the cultural Christianity of Victorian England, a system of behavior that allows for character evolution based on fear of damnation or anticipation of an afterlife, I do find merit in the frightening, devastating realizations Scrooge endures on his journey to redemption. Personally, I'd love to see a darker, more ambiguous story of revitalization for literature's most recognizable miser, one that eliminates the need for the "God bless us, everyone"-style resolution. Imagine this: Scrooge is visited by the spirit of Christmas Past, and recognizes his decline from enthusiastic youth to wretched money-hoarder; he's visited by the ghost of Christmas Present and realizes the precarious position his greed has put his employee in, as well as the pathetic joke he's become to his family; he's visited by the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and sees his impending, solitary demise; he wakes from the visions, afraid said horrors have come to fruition. He looks about in a heightened state of something akin to panic and frantic elation as he realizes that he still exists (albeit with new, disturbing knowledge of his true situation), and ... BLACKOUT.

Experimentation with well-known stories is a creative mode of tailoring the message of the author to more discretely impart the artistic and thematic messages of the play's producer and director. This is the very evolution of stories, the manner in which familiar tales are made fresh and accessible to new audiences. John Blondell and Lit Moon are frequent perpetuators of this type of unique reorganization of classic stories; their stylized version of A Christmas Carol, called Humbug, is an excellent example. It is strident and modern without denying the latent, yet impending gentleness within Scrooge as he realizes his potential to change his lifestyle.

A notably interesting aspect of this show was the physicality of the actors, particularly that of Nina Sallinen as Ebenezer Scrooge. Sallinen's Scrooge was lean, with sharp, angular movements denoting a hard emotional edge of bluntness, defensiveness, and suspicion. Pinched and smug, Sallinen's Scrooge simultaneously denounced the human kindness and celebratory atmosphere of Christmas in London and took twisted pleasure in forcing its unraveling. "Are there no workhouses?" she asks when the charities come to beg alms for the poor. Rather than simply lacking empathy, Scrooge is angry and overburdened by the festiveness of the season; he is both satisfied by and secretly disgusted with the solitary lifestyle he's created through years of disavowing any emanation of generosity. Lit Moon's Humbug had a dark frivolity that emphasized a range of emotion rooted in realism; too often Scrooge is portrayed as so excessively malevolent that he comes off as cartoonish-a tactic that helps the audience feel more comfortable watching a man with a disturbing personality disorder. This surface-level caricature is unsatisfying and unnecessary: I enjoyed seeing Sallinen and Lit Moon find both the darkest (and most redemptive) points of the story, and present them without temperance. Everyone knows the story Dickens is telling-there's no need to dilute it for the sake of entertainment or the perpetuation of relative morality.

Lit Moon's staging, as always, was innovative: puppetry was used to represent less predominant characters, and the cast personified carrion birds who hovered and cackled over Ebenezer's fresh grave. Scrooge's coat, made from the same material as the bedspread and tablecloth, allowed Scrooge to fade into the very fabric of the scenes in which he only participated voyeuristically. Lit Moon's Humbug, with its intricate details and energetic purpose, was a pleasurable, thought-provoking holiday production that I look forward to sharing in winters to come.

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