Scrooge Must Die…Laughing

[img]233|left|Scott Harris as Scrooge and Elora Dannon as Tiny Tim||no_popup[/img] And Scrooge is perhaps, more so than Santa Claus or even you-know-who himself (who is confined to a crib at this time of year), the most iconic of holiday characters in the grand psychological scheme of human beings relating to one another – at least insofar as literature is concerned. The genius of Charles Dickens’ classic is not simply that it manages to serve up a critical contextualization of poverty and class distinctions, but that it does so through an eminently human character whose revived empathy forms the backbone of the best and most universal holiday spirit. Dickens’ Scrooge is a wounded man who shuts himself in, lashing out only when provoked by memories – a conscience that materializes as ghosts one faithful Christmas Eve in a confrontation of memory and truth. Yet the suspicion that Scrooge’s embrace of the Christmas spirit might have been spurred by the fear of dying alone and unloved is never too far, even if Dickens’ story has the sophistication to present the conversion as the mingling of both fear and genuine introspection.

The Monstrous Miser

The Actor’s Gang own Angela Berliner, however, is not so sympathetic towards the miser’s about-face. Her Scrooge is a monstrously malicious yet hilarious cartoon, a characterization that gives actor Scott Harris unrestricted comic freedom to let loose, with maniacal glee, the rabid dog. With cheerful vulgarity and unrepentant offensiveness, Scrooge Must Die admits the hurt Scrooge suffered through abusive parents and the childbirth death of his beloved sister, but delights in taking his extreme misanthropy over the top.

Unfortunately, for all that Scrooge Must Die has the withering tone of a satire, the target is a little blurry. The press kit comes with analogies between a sociopathic Scrooge and talking heads like Bill O’Reilly, but if you look up the word “stretch” in the dictionary you’ll find listed this overly generous interpretation. Political allegory this is not, which leaves only the lampoon of Dickens’ work, a cynicism directed towards the very salvation underlying A Christmas Carol. “In the book, Scrooge is redeemed in the end and regrets his ways. But our version recognizes that a sociopath is still a sociopath,” says Berliner, by which she means that Scrooge’s eventual change comes, not out of a change of heart, but out of a fear of repercussions. Yet the very notion of redemption is denied in the universe of Scrooge Must Die; not only is Scrooge himself presented with great suspicion, almost everyone else is cast with varying degrees of unkindness. When the ghost of Jacob Marley is made to deliver his foreboding warning via rape, when even joyous, warm-hearted Fezziwig and his family are transformed into debauched, mocking orgiasts – Berliner’s Scrooge can’t be entirely begrudged his violently hateful personality. Sociopathic conditions, at least in the abstracted world of storytelling, breed sociopathic minds; juicing up the Cratchits’ poverty well into the lurid doesn’t change anything.

Empty Satire, Funny Holiday Counter-Programming

Is Scrooge Must Die anti-Christmas? No, but for all its deficiency at hitting foggy bull’s eyes it does mock many pretensions associated with the Christmas season, taking a lampoon of A Christmas Carol into the realm of a social satire not otherwise specified. Berliner’s humour is decidedly of the cheap variety, with sexual and expletive-filled crudeness calibrated for maximum sledgehammer effect. Gags involving scatological sexual fetishes fall flat, being gross more than funny and proving, yet again, that the line is crossed with mentions of golden showers. But for all that, Scrooge Must Die is very funny, and the performing lunatics that make up The Actor’s Gang are always good for lively, in–your-face theatre. When the holiday season becomes overstuffed with commercialized sentiments and the hustle-bustle of shopping threatens to overwhelm the genuinely universal values of compassion, goodwill and social justice, you can get your cathartic holiday counter-programming by seeing Scrooge Must Die and supporting a local gem.