{"id":238866,"date":"2016-12-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/carol-cygnets-warm-hearted-gem-2\/"},"modified":"2016-12-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T08:00:00","slug":"carol-cygnets-warm-hearted-gem-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/carol-cygnets-warm-hearted-gem-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Carol\u2019 \u2014 Cygnet\u2019s warm-hearted gem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Charlene Baldridge<\/p>\n

Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cA Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas\u201d originally began as a novella published in 1843, and then, almost immediately, it was adapted for the theater. The uplifting story recounts the redemption of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge through the Christmas Eve visitations of his decidedly dead partner, Jacob Marley, and three Ghosts of Christmas \u2014 Past, Present and Yet to Come.<\/p>\n

Cygnet Theatre Artistic Director Sean Murray goes back a long way with \u201cA Christmas Carol,\u201d initially through his youthful association with San Diego Repertory Theatre as an actor. For many years the Rep presented the play annually, and indeed Murray directed it there when he returned from college at North Carolina School of the arts (BFA, 2000).<\/p>\n

\"(l<\/a>
(l to r) David McBean as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Tom Stephenson as Ebenezer Scrooge in Cygnet Theatre\u2019s \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d now playing at Old Town Theatre (Photo by Ken Jacques)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Murray and his life and business partner Bill Schmidt founded Cygnet Theatre in 2002 and moved it to Old Town, where Murray created his own adaptation of \u201cCarol\u201d in 2012.<\/p>\n

Coming in at a sleek two hours, the play is now seen with music by Billy Thompson, choreography by Katie Whalley Banville, set design by Andrew Hull, costume design by Jeanne Reith (based on original designs by Shirley Pierson), lighting design by Kyle Montgomery (based on original design by R. Craig Wolf), wig and makeup design by Peter Herman, and sound design by Matt Lescault-Wood.<\/p>\n

Music director Patrick Marion accompanies a versatile company of actors and three breath-taking, lifelike puppets created by Michael McKeon, Lynne Jennings and Rachel Hengst.<\/p>\n

The current cadre of singer\/actors \u2014 who sing carols of the season as well as original music by Thompson \u2014 are Maggie Carney, Charles Evans, Jr., Melissa Fernandes, Melinda Gilb, David McBean, and Patrick McBride, all of whom play multiple roles. Tom Stephenson portrays Scrooge brilliantly, never out of touch with what made Scrooge Scrooge. The work is set in Elizabethan London on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

Physically and vocally imposing, McBean presents the series of ghosts, not so gently leading Scrooge through a life increasingly devoted to amassing wealth. One of the play\u2019s most poignant moments takes Scrooge back to the day when his fianc\u00e9e broke off their engagement, accusing him of having replaced her with an all-consuming new mistress named money.<\/p>\n

The grown-up Scrooge\u2019s cry to his youthful self, \u201cCall her back! Call her back, you idiot!\u201d says it all.<\/p>\n

Now way beyond love and meaningful engagement with others, Scrooge is forced by the ghosts to look upon his present, unsustainable existence, devoid of humanity and generosity.<\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-12-02-at-11-04-50-am\"<\/a>\u201cI cannot afford to make idle people merry\u201d he says to women soliciting funds for the poor. Equally ugly are his relationships with his employee, Bob Cratchit, father of the crippled Tiny Tim, and with his own nephew, Fred.<\/p>\n

The company achieves harmonic blend despite the complexity of Thompson\u2019s score. In an especially joyous pre-show warm up, all but Stephenson sing favorite carols culminating with audience participation in \u201cThe Twelve Days of Christmas,\u201d preparing the audience for what is to come. What arrives is indeed a warm-hearted gem of the season.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Charlene Baldridge has been writing about the arts since 1979. You can follow her blog at charlenecriticism.blogspot.com or reach her at charb81@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Charlene Baldridge<\/p>","protected":false},"author":731,"featured_media":238867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018Carol\u2019 \u2014 Cygnet\u2019s warm-hearted gem","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11600,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-sdnews","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}