I have a beef with ANY production of ‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL’ due to last year’s production (combined with artistic mediocrity and fiscal idiocy) threatening to topple the one great thing about Montgomery that doesn’t have to do with Civil War or Civil Rights.
he Alabama Shakespeare Festival* has experienced major money problems in recent years and is in perpetual danger of closing down. While the economy and losing their builder/benefactor (who died a few years ago and and his family is not as generous) and NEA cutbacks have been largely responsible I think a major part is pure gross incompetence/stupidity in management. (Kent Thompson, a brilliant theatrical manager, had great success in bad years and good years- he knew exactly how to balance the “artsy won’t make a profit” shows with the blockbusters- but when he left for a much higher paying gig the new person manages it with the artistic sensibility of a squid and the business acumen of a Madoff layoff.)
Case in point: last year they’d projected their lineup included CHRISTMAS CAROL, an original play about Bear Bryant, a Night With Elvis play, Romeo & Juliet, West Side Story, (I forget which other) Shakespearean play, a “Southern Writer’s Project” play**, and- the piece de resistance- Les Miserables.
So they end up paying out the yazoo for CHRISTMAS CAROL because they bought the rights to the movie musical. Was it SCROOGE- the Albert Finney musical that some (if only me) consider one of the best tellings in general and most certainly the definitive musical version? That everybody is familiar with and would probably love to see live? Nope, it was this- the onethat starred Kelsey Grammer and Jason Alexander that flopped on TV far more recently- a very cartoonish musical to begin with unlike Scrooge, which is in some ways the darkest and the most cerebral treatment of the character.
So to make up for the money they spent on the rights to the TV production that nobody watched when it starred major TV actors they charge $50 per ticket. At one point they used to have many types of discounts- practically nobody paid full price- and they would sell tickets for half-price an hour before the show/whatever they could get after the show started. I received a ticket from my brother (a subscriber) and went to see it- got there just as the overture started when a couple was asking about tickets- they were told $50 apiece. They said “That’s a bit steep for us… isn’t there a discount?” and the clerk said “I can give you 10% off- $45 each”. They left, politely, but they left. I was playing my own game of Scrooge: “NO YOU FOOL! GO AFTER HER! The show’s started! ANYTHING is better than an empty seat- if it’s only $5 a ticket! And they’d probaby have paid at least $20 each!”
Anyway, I go into the theater. The production is absolutely quite… okay. No big whoop, not bad, not great, just kinda “you’ve seen CHRISTMAS CAROL before, here it is again with really cheesy music”. The theater is literally about 1/3 full and 2/3 empty. I was almost seething so much over the people who’d been allowed to leave that I could barely enjoy the show.
$50 per ticket for a show that everybody has seen 592 times in everything from elementary school productions to big budget movies to sitcoms to- well, ASF’s own 10 or so previous productions (that’s not an exaggeration) is ridiculous. Unless Scrooge is played by Tyler Perry as M’Dea or unless Tiny Tim is portrayed by a Zac Efron clone who goes full frontal or this time Bob Cratchit ends up joining with a former student to sell quality crystal meth to 1960s ad executives one of whom is a vampire from a small southern town IT’S NOT WORTH $50 TO SEE AGAIN IN HARD ECONOMIC TIMES! For $50 you can take the entire family to the movies and buy at least a couple of snacks; for $100- the price of two tickets- you can thrown in dinner at a moderately priced place, but you’re talking $200 to $300 for a single family to pay AT CHRISTMAS TIME IN A YEAR OF GREAT RECESSION AND UNCERTAINTY- absolutely ridiculous.
So the play was an unqualified flop financially; it didn’t make enough to pay the actors and the rights and the production costs. It’s followed by the single worst production of West Side Story I’ve ever seen: the fact Maria was Chinese was bad enough . I’ve nothing against integrating a Shakespearean play- Hamlet or Ophelia or Scrooge or Henry Higgins or Cleopatra could all be played as well by an actor of any race as long as they act the part well and sing it well if it’s a musical, but the exception/rule of thumb on this: if the character’s race is important to the plot, then the actor’s race is important, and Maria’s is very important- it’s the whole damned plot hinges on it in fact. It also hinges on her amazing chemistry with Tony- a guy she’s so in love with and so attracted to that she says “de nada” when he “keels her brudder”; the actor playing Tony not only had the charisma of your average White Castle night drive through attendant but he came across less as a 1950s gang member (in a musical that’s already not that terribly ‘gritty’- as evidenced by the fact it’s a musical) so much as a 1960s Elvis movie villain (the “Throckforth X. Worthingood IV” type whose dad owns the club and who’s engaged to Ann-Margret before Elvis enters the fray)- so no chemistry, and then to top it all off the guy has at best a mediocre voice and goes flat during Maria!!! Okey doke- I’ve been in plenty of completely amateur productions to know that there’s no shortage of guys who can sing in musical theater who’ll work cheap or for nothing, and this is a professional production and the guy can’t sing any better than I can (and I’m fat and in my 40s and gay-as-pink-tinsel-icicles and could affect better chemistry with Maria of Spanish Beijing Harlem than he has. Dreadful.
So, West Side Story may have made it’s nut since people love musicals but it was a critical and word-of-mouth disaster and certainly wasn’t a major hit. When people pay $50 to see a show they want to see $50 worth of show so it’s not helping them.
Still there’s enough who want to see Les Mis- who love the show and will pay to see a good production of it in their hometown that there’s little doubt it’s going to be a blockbuster if even halfway good. EXCEPT- ASF decides to cancel it. “Based on the losses we incurred in Christmas Carol and the lackluster performance of West Side Story there is too great a risk of financial loss for another large musical.”
And again: “YOU FOOL! GO AFTER THEM!”
Do you know how many times I’ve watched A CHRISTMAS CAROL on stage, on film, on TV, etc.? Because I don’t. I honestly couldn’t give you an estimate. I’m guessing conservatively several dozen times and hundreds wouldn’t surprise me.
Do you know how many times I’ve watched LES MIS on stage? I do. Three. Twice the road show, once a pretty good amateur production in Georgia. And I’d GLADLY watch it again, especially here in town. It’s the most successful stage show ever produced for Chrissake! (I think- that may be Phantom- but it’s on the Top 3 list I guarantee you- it’s made billions.) I’m also sure that you can work something out with the rights to it- the play paid for itself more than 20 years ago, anything at this point is profit, and it’s not like if you don’t buy it then the well funded major league theater next door is going to option it because the nearest professional theater troupe is hundreds of miles away and it ain’t ASF (no swans, no Elizabethan gardens, no crown jewel pieces on display, etc.); they’ll probably work with you on reducing the rights. And if they won’t— IT’S LES MIS! IT’S NEVER PLAYED IN MONTGOMERY BEFORE, IT HASN’T PLAYED ANYWHERE IN ALABAMA [at least not professionally] IN 15 YEARS OR MORE, PEOPLE WILL COME FROM ALL OVER THE STATE AND THE SURROUNDING STATES TO SEE IT!" But nope.
So the South produces another Braxton Bragg to lead us, only this time in tights.
I’m very interested to see how this year does though. Instead of CHRISTMAS CAROL they’re doing CHRISTMAS STORY. While everybody’s seen the movie 90 times (if they wanted to anyway), they haven’t seen it on stage. Here’s hoping.
Anyway, that’s why I don’t like productions of CHRISTMAS CAROL anymore.
*For those not familiar, Alabama Shakespeare Festivalis not a high school gym with students running around carrying cardboard trees but a state-of-the-art enormous complex built from the ground up in the backyard of alocal billionairewho wanted it to be his legacy to the city. It’s beautiful and highly respected; name actors got their start there (Norbert Leo Butz and Thomas Gibson among others) and literally has some pieces from the Crown Jewels (very minor admittedly) lent by the Queen of England; Tony Randall pronounced it the finest regional theater in North America (discounting Broadway and L.A. of course).
**Southern Writer’s Project is a production of a new play by a southern playwright each year; some were great and some sucked, but it was usually interesting. Discontinued now due to money.