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Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild
Dramatic Society's Production of 'A Christmas Carol'
NORTHERN LIGHTS No, you didn't misread the title. David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin, Jnr. wrote this delightfully light and goofy comedy as a heartwarming Christmas gift to all in remembrance of one of their mom's eager local amateur productions, with their share of mishaps, miscues and misunderstandings all generously overlooked by a supportive audience of family and friends. The play is one of a series of such inept spoofs on various theatrical genres, from MacBeth to Gilbert and Sullivan. You may get an inkling that something is awry when hostess Mrs. Reece played with requisite enthusiasm by Mary-Ann Saranchak, informs the audience some of the British cast's transportation broke down on the way, and she proceeds to entertain us while we wait. Not to worry, the rest of the crew soon shows up, almost ready to perform the perquisite Dickens holiday classic, Farndale style. This intimate traveling group of half a dozen doubles, triples and more in the key parts with Annie Mezzacappa as arthritic Mercedes as Bob Cratchit among others. Karen Harris is vainglorious, grumbling Thelma, an ideal quality for the principal role of Ebenezer Scrooge. David Cramer is the lone male, Gordon, who is also a matronly Mrs. Cratchit. Sarah Moreau plays felicitous Felicity, who pirouettes through every part as Fred, et.al. Finally, Brittany Soldo is Maureen, the stagehand. Some pessimists insist that Murphy was an optimist in his famous law. The dramatic guild certainly lives to prove this as flats collapse or get stuck on actors, line mix-ups and apartes lead to imbroglios, and in general everything that could possibly go wrong indeed does. In spite of this, the plot moves merrily along its traditional lines as Scrooge's nightmarish Christmas eve unfolds with all its visions. The audience has a jolly good time along with the cast, and is called on to participate, willy nilly. You are warned, in that intimate setting, the odds are someone in your group might just be the victim of a stage prank. Then again, this might be the perfect time to be discovered, either by 'chance' or to be given the opportunity to join the troupe, which is actively recruiting - and in dire need of improvement such as provided even by unseasoned actors such as you! This being a Britcom, you will get an interval rather than an intermission, and tea features prominently in the script. Patricia Miller directs the play, aided by her husband Bradley who also worked as choreographer, and set and sound designer. The show is suitable for all ages, and children will particularly appreciate the slapstick humor, which would make it a great occasion to make Farndale a holiday treat the entire family can enjoy, as well as an introduction to the holiday classic. This is the first production in the new Chance Theater
setting, now directly fronting La Palma.
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BACK STAGE
WEST Starting in November in nearly every corner of
the country, some version of Dickens' A
Christmas Carol is trotted out to spark the
holiday season. Some are faithful renditions of the classic, some are
mean-spirited attacks on sentimentality, and others are comedic adventures.
The Chance Theater Company, performing in an industrial complex in a new
building smelling of fresh paint, is presenting its production sponsored
by the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society,
those stalwart ladies who have done such other classics as Macbeth,
The Mikado, and Murder
at Checkmate Manor. Though one hesitates
to call the ladies inept, a plethora of unfortunate disasters seem to
befall the cast at every turn. Their stage manager, Gordon (David Cramer),
is a petulant, smirking cherub with the face of Benny Hill and bearing
a lot of his mannerisms. Filling in as a ghost and Mrs. Crachitt, among
others, he provides a little masculine burlesque in this all-female cast.
Mrs. Reece (Mary-Ann Saranchak) is the quintessential lady's club president,
bustling about with her handbag over her arm--it is the one clue to the
identity of the ghost of Christmas Future. The youthful Felicity (Sarah
Moreau) is a tap-dance queen, unfailingly pleasant and a bit of a ditz.
Mercedes (Annie Mezzacappa), still recovering from her awful traffic accident,
gamely fills multiple roles between spasms that leave her contorted but
cheerful. The true actress of the group, Thelma (Karen Harris), fills
the role of Scrooge with earnest seriousness. Her fellow cast mates are
a sore trial to her, but she stays so the show can go on. Thirteen-year-old
Brittany Soldo fills in as the assistant stage manager and a violinist
offering the opening musical number. Husband and wife Bradley and Patricia
Miller direct, design the sets, produce the very effective sound design,
light the stage, and choreograph the musical numbers. It is truly a mom-and-pop
operation that bears the mark of enthusiasm. To divulge any of the mishaps
that occur as the show goes on would be churlish, for the company is giving
its all. Pulling in audience members, playing charades, singing and dancing
are added bonuses, though the show could be trimmed at the end to achieve
a stronger finish. Some of the games and singalongs might be better introduced
before the Carol itself. Even so, for pure slapstick, overacting, and
a charming small house production, the Chance group proves that theatre
is thriving in the most unlikely places in the Southland.
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ORANGE COUNTY
REGISTER This time of year, some folks just can't get their fill of Scrooge, Cratchit, Tiny Tim and those ubiquitous spirits. That means you won't have much trouble finding a local staging of "A Christmas Carol". For those nearly immune to the warmer sentiments of the Dickens classic (present company included), there is a small handful of contemporary comedies that skewer the tale, including "Inspecting Carol" and "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of 'A Christmas Carol'". The latter, by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin, Jnr., takes us to the imaginary town of Farndale, England, where a small but intrepid band of amateur thespians struggles to get through a seemingly doomed performance of "A Christmas Carol". The Chance Theater's timing in staging this spoof couldn't be better. Not that the troupe is as hilariously inept as the theater company depicted in the play - but the Chance is still putting the finishing touches to its new theater space, giving the current show an air of slapdash, as though we're stepping into a work in progress. McGillivray and Zerlin sow the seeds for disaster for their characters in two ways. First, with one possible exception, the members of this fictional dramatic society are abysmally bad actors, which automatically puts their little production of "A Christmas Carol" on the brink of disaster. The second condition - the late arrival, due to heavy traffic, of star Thelma - pushes this particular evening's staging over the edge. Murphy's Law sets in, a kind of irreversible domino effect: Technical cues are botched left and right by a young male more interested in studying the latest men's porn magazine than getting the music, sound and lighting cues right. Acting entrances, exits and cues are early, late or nonexistent. Costumes and props refuse to cooperate and, as a running joke, that stubborn X-rates magazine keeps popping up at the worst possible moments. The joke, of course, isn't just that every imaginable pitfall and disaster is encountered; it's that this intrepid little band refuses to recognize that everything is working against them. The co-authors also get a lot of mileage out of some inspired lunacy. Scenes such as Fezziwig's party and the Cratchits' Christmas Day dinner are comically, woefully underpopulated by the four-woman, one-man Farndale troupe. The actor portraying Marley's ghost gets his head stuck in the door hole. Scrooge's encounter with Marley becomes an Abbott and Costello routine, while his flights with the spirits are punctuated by Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me" on the audio track. In an even more surreal scene, consider the sight of Scrooge and one of the ghosts flying over London in a flimsy wooden airplane labeled "Dickens Air", with a Union Jack decorating the tail rudder. One spirit carries a lady's handbag and struggles mightily to light a match at a graveside. These creative satirical touches lend variety to the script's basic, superficially one-joke premise, well-executed by Patricia Miller and her cast at the Chance. Karen Harris' turn as Thelma is a study in the frustrations of a classically trained actress clearly above her station in acting ability - a prima donna who lords it over her less-talented cast mates while, we suspect, secretly enjoying her superiority. ... About the only performance that scores all around is Sarah Moreau's relentlessly cheerful (and aptly named) Felicity, who faces every calamity identically: With a rigid grin, unblinking eyes and an insistence on turning every scene into a showcase for her ballet skills. As stagehand Maureen, young Brittany Soldo has a few nice moments as well (and a pleasing violin solo). Bradley Miller's sound design is choice, and his scenic
design has an innocently Dickensian, greeting-card flavor. "Inspecting
Carol" may offer a more wickedly funny modern twist to the idea of
a cast facing adversity while trying to stage "A Christmas Carol",
but this play - the fifth in the playwrights' "Farndale" series
- intentionally shows us just how bad unintentionally funny community
theater can be.
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