‘Twenty-nine years!’ proclaim the advertisements, ‘Seven Scrooges! 27 Tiny Tims and 17 thousand ‘Bah, Humbugs’!’ It’s the Goodman Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol, adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens. Despite the title, this fanciful tale of a misanthrope reformed through supernatural intervention appeals to audiences of all religions, creeds and beliefs, its message firmly grounded in values common to both sacred and secular proponents. These are illustrated in the spiritual awakening of one Ebenezer Scrooge, a Victorian moneylender whose experience has rendered him crabbed and miserly, the accumulation of wealth having become his sole obsession.
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Larry Yando in A Christmas Carol. Photo by Brian Warling
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The story relates how one Christmas Eve, the ghost of his long-deceased business partner warns him that his eternal damnation is nigh, but that his one chance of redemption lies in the hands of three spectral guides. The first of these re-acquaints the reluctant pilgrim with the events responsible for his condition: the constant threat of poverty that led him to alienate his dowryless fiancée, the bankruptcy and ruin of his too-generous mentor and the death of his beloved sister, whose son he now spurns as a reminder of her loss.
The second vision takes Scrooge on a tour of London meant to demonstrate how pain and fear may be banished, not by money, but by fellowship, love and good will. In the company of warm and loyal friends, the scorned nephew speaks charitably of his estranged uncle, and the family of Scrooge’s underpaid clerk defy hardships—the pawning of their possessions to meet expenses, children forced to labor as apprentices, and a crippled youngest son languishing under an unnamed malady—to enjoy their holiday. Finally, the third vision confronts Scrooge with the future unhappiness that his selfishness will engender, consequences so terrifying that Scrooge vows to change his ways.
The Goodman Theatre production of this popular fable has undergone several variations over the nearly 30 years that it has been a Chicago event as eagerly anticipated as Santa Claus himself. Musical interludes have commanded and relinquished the spotlight; cinematic special effects have been introduced and abandoned; the ambience has ranged from gothic horror to candy-box coziness; and the cast now includes actors of all ethnicities, further emphasizing the universality of its theme. But at the center of the action, always, is Scrooge, the character whose name has entered our language as the embodiment of corporate inhumanity, and whose journey represents the possibility of redemption for even the most flagrantly antisocial perpetrators of white-collar crimes.
No humbug about it: These are some big shoes to fill. Many Chicago thespians have taken up the challenge, including William J. Norris (who played Scrooge from 1978 to 1983, and also from 1985 to 1990), Tom Mula (from 1991 to 1997), Frank Galati (in 1984), Rick Snyder (from 1998 to 2001), William Brown (from 2002 to 2005) and Jonathan Weir (in 2006). But for 2007, the role will be essayed by veteran character actor Larry Yando, long a Chicago-area favorite who recently completed a three-year tour playing the villainous Scar in the Julie Taymor-designed production of Disney’s The Lion King.
Windy City Times: Every culture in the whole world has somebody like Scrooge in its folklore. How are you approaching the character for ours?
Larry Yando: I’m trying to connect with Scrooge on a human level. I guess every actor who plays Scrooge does that, but what makes it so hard for me is having to allow myself to be very vulnerable in my own emotions. After running the show every day, I feel completely drained—but in a good way.
WCT: Exactly what’s Scrooge’s problem, as you see it?
LY: He let the greatest love of his life go.
WCT: Is this what makes us identify with him, no matter what our background or circumstances?
LY: Regret is a motivating factor for anyone, I think. Doesn’t everybody feel, at times, like they somehow missed the step that would have led them to true happiness? I want to tap into that psychological injury—whatever it was—that Scrooge incurred in his deepest past, and then operate from there.
WCT: He doesn’t make it easy to discover.
LY: No, he doesn’t! I don’t know about other actors’ interpretations, but I know that Scrooge’s defense is a sarcastic, heavily-ironic humor. Scrooge is very smart, and he’s very funny. There’s a lot of wit involved in playing him.
WCT: How did you go about preparing for the role?
LY: I started looking over my lines early, because I was still performing in Cymbeline [at Chicago Shakespeare] while rehearsing for Christmas Carol, right up to tech week. I usually don’t like to memorize until I’m on my feet in rehearsal, and can learn my role with my body as well as with my brain. But after I took into consideration the fatigue that would come from doing two shows at the same time, it seemed a good idea to come into the Goodman already knowing my part.
WCT: Did it help?
LY: It did. It helped a lot. I also re-read Dickens’ original novella. His descriptive passages were very informative—the way he writes about the streets and the people, and how awful it was there in Victorian London. When I walk out onstage now, I may be actually walking on wooden planks, but I’m seeing the snow and the slush and all the dirt that Dickens saw.
WCT: How will your Scrooge differ from the previous ones?
LY: The last time I saw A Christmas Carol was so long ago, I hardly remember it, so I came in with no frame of reference. That put me a little behind, rehearsing with actors who have done this show before. On the other hand, it means I’m starting fresh and not copying anybody. I feel I have it in myself to sense that thin line where pain and humor co-exist, battling—but also assisting—each other.
WCT: And that’s what A Christmas Carol is all about.
LY: Yes. It’s not the cute holiday story that I had in my head when we started. It’s actually a deep and hard-hitting human drama.