Theater review: Ghost of unfulfilled potential haunts ‘Lone Star Christmas Carol’ at Fort Worth’s Circle Theatre
01:29 AM CST on Sunday, November 22, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com
FORT WORTH – Transposing Charles Dickens’ most beloved tale to frontier Texas is a dandy notion. But, as it stands, A Lone Star Christmas Carol is a ghost of a holiday show still to come.
Gary Taylor and Gary Moody wrote the musical, which had its world premiere at Circle Theatre on Saturday. Moody narrates the piece. Taylor leads the onstage band from his guitar.
Six actors, including Moody, play all the roles. The device works mostly well enough. But it’s puzzling and unsatisfactory when Jeff McGee plays Bob Cratchit at the office, while John Venable (who also portrays Scrooge’s nephew Fred) plays Bob at home in the second act.
Sometimes the text follows Dickens all too literally (aside from the Texas colloquialisms). But, running out of time at the end of an overlong evening, the authors squeeze the all-important three final scenes into a single mish-mash. So Scrooge never makes up with Fred and doesn’t get to taunt Cratchit at the office, but instead invades the Cratchit house for dinner.
Expunging some of the weaker songs, and eliminating repeated refrains, would leave room to wrap the story up right. A lot of the lyrics also limp along with off-rhymes and half-rhymes, or no rhymes at all where the pattern suggests they should be.
But some of the songs work well. The waltz at Fezziwig’s party is a hit for Venable as the young Scrooge and Rachel Rice as Belle. The two of them also make the young couple’s break-up more moving than in other renditions with their duet “Lie to Me.” The delightful Heatherton Hardy Wilson (like a cross between Reba McEntire and Baby Snooks) wins over the audience with Mrs. Cratchit’s rant against Scrooge.
Under director Chris Robinson, the Scrooge, Burl Proctor, isn’t nearly glum or mean enough to start out with. Moody himself would be far more interesting in the part – although Saturday he had an alarming wheeze between lines of the songs. McGee boasts a fine, clear tenor voice – but in the two patter songs allotted him, too many words don’t come through clearly.
So back to the drawing boards, fellows. There’s the germ of a great show here. It just might take a few more ghostly inspirations to make it blossom.
Through Dec. 19 at Circle Theatre, 230 W. Fourth St., Fort Worth. Runs 150 mins. $20 to $30. 817-877-3040, www.circletheatre.com.
