Date: Fri 16-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

TheatreWorks-Ghost-Scrooge

Full Text:

(rev "Ghost of a Chance" @TheatreWorks)

Theatre Review--

Ghosts & Carols, Slightly Out Of Season, But Great Fun

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD -- A Scrooge play performed in the month after Christmas? "Humbug"

you say? No, it's a new wrinkle on an old theme, and a rather refreshing one

at that. Two multi-talented area residents, Bill Hughes and John Stevens, have

put together a piece that mixes Dickens with Agatha Christie, grafting a

courtroom drama onto the old Christmas Carol .

The play, Ghost of a Chance , currently at New Milford TheatreWorks, begins

with the "defenestration" of Ebeneezer... did he fall or was he pushed out of

that upstairs window where so lately he had been wishing Merry Christmas to an

"excellent boy."

This leads to the arrest and trial of Fred Pennyworth, the cheerful young

nephew who persisted in being pleasant to Scrooge in the original story. After

all, Fred is poor, he is the potential heir to the miser's money, and, he is

an actor -- and thus surely capable of manifesting a facade of innocence and

goodness to hide an otherwise scurrilous nature.

This is the position taken by Eberhard Badgerwick, the cynical and

misanthropic prosecutor, who intends to see Fred hang. He claims Fred worried

that Scrooge's unexpected change of heart would lead him to dissipate his

entire fortune in random acts of kindness, and so decided to prevent this by

taking matters into his own hands. Further, Badgerwick has an eyewitness who

places Fred at the scene, despite the alibi provided by his timidly doting

wife.

On Fred's side is Drumble Dullworthy, the soft-spoken Charles Laughton-like

barrister who offers as comfort the promise that "if we lose the case at least

you won't have to pay my considerable fee."

Witnesses for the prosecution are called, examined and challenged. Similarly,

witnesses for the defense, including Bob Cratchit, Fred's wife, and

author-actor Charles Dickens, who appears in a walk-on role, are called on to

vouch for Fred's good character.

It's all great fun, right down to the Christie-ish surprise ending. The acting

is uniformly good: Anders Froelich as Fred, Jonathan Ross and George Meadows

as the duelling barristers, and Heather Lynn Barret as Fred's anxious wife,

are all fine. Bob Lussier, Marty Fay and Bill Hughes do an excellent job

doubling up as the minor characters.

The two best features of the show, however, are Lesley Neilson-Bowman's

costumes, in which the loutish prosecution witnesses are distinguished by

their raffish checkered outfits, while Fred and the friends who come to

support him are clad in tasteful shades of brown and gray; and the

playwrights' ability to fuse their own dialogue with the original author's

tone and wit.

Especially enjoyable were some of the lines granted to the defense witnesses,

who get to put the prosecutor in his place with some of the snappiest

comebacks ever gotten away with in a courtroom.

This would be an ideal play to take kids to, as long as they are old enough to

be familiar with the original story. It would introduce them to the joy of

being able to recognize literary allusions and also make them feel literate

and well educated, as well as highly entertained.

Ghost of A Chance continues at TheatreWorks, 5 Brookside Avenue, through

January 24. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm. Tickets are $12 for

adults, $10 students and seniors. For reservations or additional information,

call the theatre, 350-6863.