Servant Stage's A Christmas Carol

I was surprised to realize I could see A Christmas Carol at 11AM on a Friday. I was even more surprised when I showed up at Lancaster Alliance Church, where Servant Stage's touring production was performing this past weekend, and realized the place was fairly packed.

I later learned multiple school groups were there, which might explain the crowd. But then again, it's Servant Stage. I found Servant Stage in 2018 when they performed My Fair Lady at Millersville University's Winter Center. All their shows are pay-what-you-will, so I went twice. (It was a fantastic production, and also the only production of My Fair Lady I've seen that had a content warning for the words hell and damn. Interestingly, those words only remained when used in a song; to the production's detriment, coarse language in the rest of the script was discreetly omitted. My friend who came with me to their production of Newsies this summer, a show I wasn't familiar with, tells me that "Curse this place!" is not what gets said in most productions of that show either.)

I haven't got Servant Stage quite figured out yet. My initial assumption looking through the My Fair Lady playbill four years ago was that many of their actors are moonlighters from Sight & Sound Theatres looking for more serious fare to perform. Their recent production of Newsies apparently brought out the whole of Lancaster. Preliminary Googling seems to say they had over 50,000 audience members in 2019. And their playbill today had probably 3-5 pages filled, in two-columned tiny text, with the names of donors who gave $50-$250 to support them. Despite being one of the most financially accessible theaters in Lancaster, Servant Stage Company may also be one of the most successful.

Does Lancaster County turn out to support ostensibly Christian theater with broad appeal? Does Servant Stage just have a really good marketing team? How many dollars and volunteers come through their educational programs?

Those are questions to be answered another day.

Duane Hespell is very good as Scrooge in the production, except in the beginning, where he absolutely shines. He accomplishes a take on the character I haven't seen before: a figure made stingy not because he is bad, but because he is wracked by worry and fear, which in turn fills him with a blubbering anger. Quite frankly, I thought his nephew Fred could've been nicer to the old fellow rather than rubbing his Christmas cheer in his uncle's face, who clearly has some deep-seated problems keeping him from appreciating the holiday.

The adaptation, touted as drawn directly from Dickens' text -- which it mostly is, although there are several scenes with paraphrases of the text set to classic Christmas tunes -- is fairly economical and quite serviceable. Audience attention seemed to lag in Christmas Future, but we may fairly blame Dickens for that. The Victorian costumes are lush, and the minimal set -- seemingly designed for ease of transport and set-up in a traveling show -- has an ingenious touch of color behind what initially seems like mere black curtains, and some lanterns complete the minimalistic evocation of late-1800s London. Unusually, the show's instruments consist of a harp, cello, and, I believe, pennywhistles; which create a wonderful incidental soundscape.

The rest of the actors (the show is double-cast except for Hespell) are quite good, with a few child actors in the mix who are there to act and not to be cute. When they open their mouths to sing in perfect harmony is when you think, if you haven't already, Oh, these are professionals. But the other characters swirl and dance around Scrooge -- even Tiny Tim barely makes an appearance -- only in support to his character arc. (Scrooge, it should be noted, steps into the shoes of most of his past selves in this version, rather than watching from afar.)

Tickets and show information can be found HERE. Seven performances remain at the Ware Center from December 15th through 18th -- at 11am on Saturday; at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday; and at 7pm on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

All performances are pay-what-you-will, but tickets should be reserved online ahead of time.