by Christopher Arnott - November 25, 2004 

PROMOTIONAL PHOTO 
 
 Scrooge 

National tour of Leslie Bricusses musicalization of Dickens A Christmas Carol. 
Nov. 30 through Dec. 5 at the Oakdale, Wallingford. 265-1501. 
Richard Chamberlain will no doubt be the handsomest Ebenezer Scrooge ever. "Well, first off, I'm an old fart now," the rugged actor claimed in a telephone interview last week. The national tour of Scrooge , a stage spectacle that grew out of the 1970 movie musical version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol , arrives at the Oakdale this week. 

So who had the bright idea that the erstwhile Dr. Kildare, musketeer and miniseries megastar (of The Thornbirds and Shogun ) could inhabit the sullied soul of the ultimate Christmas party-pooper? None other than Scrooge 's composer, librettist and motivating force, Leslie Bricusse, an old pal of Chamberlain's who's been pushing him to don that ominous top hat and sideburns for ages. Bricusse's other musical adventures with split personalities include Broadway's Jekyll & Hyde and the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory , while Chamberlain's never been strictly a leading man, having done Hamlet and Cyrano de Bergerac and making his musical mark on Broadway in My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music (which also toured to the Oakdale). 

So quibble not about casting. But there's still another nagging question. For years, Chamberlain's home base has been Hawaii. Why on earth would he choose to tour the continental United States for eleven week in wintertime? "I sort of miss weather. I like weather." He describes Appleton, Ohio, where Scrooge stopped last week, as "gray, gray, gray and cold," but strangely appealing. 

I told Chamberlain how much I'd loved his memoir Shattered Love , published last year. The book shows its worldly, well-heeled author to be not just supremely centered and karmically balanced, but eager to let his readers in on the secrets of peace and inner beauty. "I wrote it because I wanted to talk about life," he told me, though all the publishers expected of him was the usual Hollywood dirt. He did provide one tidbit of immense publicity value, coming out as a gay man. "I was finally able to do it after realizing, deep within myself, that it was a non-event." All the self-doubt and social stereotyping he'd endured was "just nonsense." Such openness and self-fulfillment can only help his interpretation of the transformative Scrooge . 

Scrooge’ provides faithful adaptation of Dickens’ classic 
By Steven Hyden 
Post-Crescent staff writer
November 17, 2004

APPLETON — When did we start giving Thanksgiving the shaft? 

Here we have a holiday made up of turkey, football, canned cranberries and other wonderful things, and people can’t wait to hustle it off the calendar so they can get to Christmas.

Turkey Day is getting no respect at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, where the musical “Scrooge” with Richard Chamberlain is playing through Sunday. 

Just 10 days before the official opening of Christmas shopping season (also known as the day after Thanksgiving), the PAC is teaching the old seasonal lessons about loving your loved ones and being kind to strangers directly from the good book. No, not that good book, the book that launched a thousand yuletide cliches, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” 

“Scrooge” is a perfectly decent adaptation of the 1970 film starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness.

The story, for those who have been buried next to Jacob Marley for the past 150 years, concerns a greedy businessman who learns the errors of his ways after being visited by ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. (Too bad the spirit world didn’t get involved with the Enron folks, but the timeliness of greed keeps this story fresh.)

What can you say about this show? The Dickens story is like a knock-knock joke that stopped being funny long ago, but you still want to hear it because familiarity breeds comfort. 

What sets this version apart is the music, but just barely. Scrooge has more friends than composer Leslie Bricusse has memorable songs in his rather ordinary score. 

With minimal choreography by Lisa Kent, the numbers exist only to further the story, but since everyone and their grandmother already know Dickens by heart, they end up clinking and clanking along redundantly. The exceptions are two songs that break from the saccharine tone: the funny dead man march “Make the Most of this World” and the bitterly ironic “Thank You Very Much.”

Since Scrooge is a role that practically plays itself, it goes without saying the old pro Chamberlain holds down the fort ably. But he has a tough go of it early on when he has little to do except scowl every “Bah humbug!” like the world’s most pompous dinner theater actor. 

At first, Chamberlain’s habit of talking through every song is off-putting, but it ends up being an appropriate choice. Why should an old coot like Scrooge have a booming voice?

The familiar mechanisms of Dickens’ story begin to take hold once the spirits make their spooky appearances. (Illusionist and “Harry Potter” vet Paul Kieve has designed some nifty switcheroos.) Only the most poisonous miser will have dry eyes at show’s end, when a transformed Chamberlain gets a hug from poor Tiny Tim, who says poignantly, “God bless us everyone.” 

Like you didn’t know that was going to happen. 

For women of a certain age, Brad Pitt has got nothing on Richard Chamberlain. The man who brought both the dashing Dr. Kildare and the lustful priest from “The Thorn Birds” to life, Chamberlain’s all-American good looks have made him a durable leading man for most of the past five decades.

Chamberlain is the leading man once again in the musical “Scrooge,” playing Tuesday through Nov. 21 at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, but he likely won’t be getting anyone hot and bothered this time. And not just because the former teen heartthrob is now 70. Chamberlain is tackling the part of the terminally unsexy miser whose yuletide hating ways are cured by three ghosts who point out the mistakes of the past, present and future. 

It’s the old story from Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” that everybody knows and loves. If you will recall, Dickens didn’t allow Scrooge any romantic interludes involving horseback rides and strolls on the beach. So Chamberlain won’t be getting lucky this time around. Perhaps that is for the best. Chamberlain, after all, is happy to leave his leading man past behind in favor of character work. As for Scrooge, Chamberlain feels qualified to play the part. 

“It’s my life story,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “Scrooge focuses on money; I focused on career, fame, all that stuff. It was wonderful … but it was kind of an obsession.”

Fortunately for Chamberlain, it didn’t take a visit from a dead business partner to bring him to his senses. All it took was therapy. It was during this process that the actor says he confronted the unhappiness in his life and the discomfort he felt in his own skin. 

The culmination of Chamberlain’s self-discovery was releasing his 2003 memoir “Shattered Love,” where he openly discussed being a gay man for the first time. After years of covering up his sexual orientation for fear of the public’s response, coming clean was a relief for Chamberlain. 

“Coming out wasn’t a big event. The big event was discovering that it was a non-issue,” he said. “All the guilt and shame was complete (expletive), complete nonsense that I inherited from my culture.”

Chamberlain used his pain to connect with Scrooge, the miserable old man who stops just short of kicking the crutches out from under poor little Tiny Tim. 

“He’s very damaged goods at the beginning part of the show,” he said. “He’s so afraid of human contact because he’s been hurt so badly. He’s really a gnarly old jerk.” 

Old, of course, is the important word. Few Christmas stories have the shelf life of “A Christmas Carol.” Even though the story has undeniable sentimental appeal, do people really want to sit through yet another re-telling of Dickens’ feel-good parable about the importance of human kindness? Chamberlain is betting that they do.

“Same as we revisit the holidays, we revisit these wonderful stories,” Chamberlain said. “Dickens really knew what he was doing.”

So does the creative team behind “Scrooge,” which has goosed this 19th century tale with some 21st century visual pizzazz. This is a ghost story at its core, and “Scrooge” has plenty of ghosts walking through walls, appearing out of thin air and giving out a general spooky vibe. 

The man responsible for much of this is Paul Kieve, a British illusionist who recently acted as magic consultant for the film “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” He designed magical illusions for the film, and taught stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson some tricks of the trade. Kieve is behind the sleight of hand that makes the seasonal supernatural activity in “Scrooge” seem plausible.

Speaking by phone from his home in London, Kieve expressed disappointment about not being able to catch the show in Appleton, only the third American city thus far to host “Scrooge.” Like many illusionists, Kieve is enamored with the adopted hometown of Harry Houdini.

“I hope the spirit of Houdini will see the show,” he said. 

For Kieve, who has been with “Scrooge” since its 1993 London premiere, the idea is to make the spirits seem both palpable and awe-inspiring for the audience.

“Our version of the show always has had a magic element in it,” Kieve said. “I think a lot of versions cop out. They bring out people in a puff of smoke.”

The trickery in this “Scrooge” is most dazzling whenever a spirit makes its appearance or disappearance on stage. Kieve singles out the Ghost of Christmas Past as having the most dramatic flair for entering and exiting. He hopes to leave the audience guessing as to how they did it. 

“For special effects to be truly spectacular, it should be surprising and baffling,” Kieve said. “There’s a difference between a puff of smoke and what I do.” 

I'm not sure wc needed another "Christmas Carol"in this tow, the Guthrie has owvned that franchise for a quarter-century and dozens of adaptations litter stage and screen every year. I.eslie Bricusse, however, is of the "more the merrier school." He wrote book, the lyrics and music for "Scrooge," a 1970 film that has been retrofitted for the stage.

"Scrooge" landed in the Twin Cities on Tuesday night at the Historic Orpheum Theatre. with Richard Chamberlain slipping into the skin of Christmas' most famous humbug. This is not a fading pretty boy shuffling through the paces of a star turn. Chamberlain may not be brilliant, but he earns my respect for a prodigious, honest night's work.

He looks afright, the result of some makeup designer's evil stew: hair by Count Chocula, eyebrows from C. Montgomery Burns, evil grin from the Grinch. Sink the cheekbones and highlight the forehead and you have a Scrooge who's more Harry Potter wizard and less evil miser. In fact, Paul Kieve, who created special effects for the most recent Potter film, contributes some amazing hocus-pocus to this staging.

And that fits director Bob Tomson's production wel1. It's not an earnest. grounded attempt to portray Dickens' tale. It's a pageant, a big splashy performance with awesome sets, lovely stage pictures, razzle-dazzle song and dance -- in one case involving Marley's gang of ghosts in a number that looked cribbed from the zombie flick "Shaun of the Dead." Bricusse has largely left the story in good shape. though he did make one significant change in identifing the Ghost of Christmas Past with Scroogc's deceased sister. In spite of my penchant for tradition. I actually thought this intriguing choice made sense.

At the center of all this is Chamberlain. spry and light for his 70 years. He largely practices the Rex Harrison school or singing. but occasionally lights up the linal measure of a ballad with a big, impressive voice. That stiff tortured look tattooed on his face matches his acting. Jaw set and eyebrows in a perpetual scowl, he's a cranky old sort, rarely going outside the emotional boundaries of indigestion. But he does show his chops here and there, breaking down in tears, badgering his young self to go after Belle and spreading warmth in that final scene of transformation.

Of the rest of the cast, only Ben Ratskolff sticks in the memory for his Tiny Tim, a fragile little bird in body, spirit and voice.

It may be tough to catch the Christmas spirit. Two weeks before Thanksgiving. with golf courses still open and jack-o-lanterns lumped against the back stoop. And that rnight be the toughest battle for this interloper in trying to grab a piece of the "Christmas Carol" market. But then if spectacle. music and star power turn you on, here it is.

Spirited 'Scrooge' is a worthy 'Carol'
Theater review: 
Graydon Royce,  Star Tribune 
November 11, 2004 

I'm not sure we needed another "Christmas Carol." In this town, the Guthrie has owned that franchise for a quarter-century and dozens of adaptations litter stage and screen every year. Leslie Bricusse, however, is of the "more the merrier school." He wrote book, lyrics and music for "Scrooge," a 1970 film that has been retrofitted for the stage.

"Scrooge" landed in the Twin Cities on Tuesday night at the Historic Orpheum Theatre, with Richard Chamberlain slipping into the skin of Christmas' most famous humbug. This is not a fading pretty boy shuffling through the paces of a star turn. Chamberlain may not be brilliant, but he earns my respect for a prodigious, honest night's work.

He looks afright, the result of some makeup designer's evil stew: hair by Count Chocula, eyebrows from C. Montgomery Burns, evil grin from the Grinch. Sink the cheekbones and highlight the forehead and you have a Scrooge who's more Harry Potter wizard and less evil miser. In fact, Paul Kieve, who created special effects for the most recent Potter film, contributes some amazing hocus-pocus to this staging.

And that fits director Bob Tomson's production well. It's not an earnest, grounded attempt to portray Dickens' tale. It's a pageant, a big splashy performance with awesome sets, lovely stage pictures, razzle-dazzle song and dance -- in one case involving Marley's gang of ghosts in a number that looked cribbed from the zombie flick "Shaun of the Dead." Bricusse has largely left the story in good shape, though he did make one significant change in identifying the Ghost of Christmas Past with Scrooge's deceased sister. In spite of my penchant for tradition, I actually thought this intriguing choice made sense.

At the center of all this is Chamberlain, spry and light for his 70 years. He largely practices the Rex Harrison school of singing, but occasionally lights up the final measure of a ballad with a big, impressive voice. That stiff, tortured look tattooed on his face matches his acting. Jaw set and eyebrows in a perpetual scowl, he's a cranky old sort, rarely going outside the emotional boundaries of indigestion. But he does show his chops here and there, breaking down in tears, badgering his young self to go after Belle and spreading warmth in that final scene of transformation.

Of the rest of the cast, only Ben Ratskoff sticks in the memory for his Tiny Tim, a fragile little bird in body, spirit and voice.

It may be tough to catch the Christmas spirit, two weeks before Thanksgiving, with golf courses still open and jack-o-lanterns lumped against the back stoop. And that might be the toughest battle for this interloper in trying to grab a piece of the "Christmas Carol" market. But then if spectacle, music and star power turn you on, here it is.

What: Book, lyrics and music by Leslie Bricusse. Directed by Bob Tomson and starring Richard Chamberlain.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 & 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Historic Orpheum Theatre, 924 Hennepin Av. S., Minneapolis.

Review: Chamberlain shows himself a hard worker in this well-made big-stage pageant.

Tickets: $20-$73. 612-673-0404.