Humbug uncontrolled

p>To spice up the holidays, Shipping
Dock Theatre openedlast weekend in its new location at
Visual Studies Workshop with an anti-Christmas
Carol. Make that an Aunty Christmas
Carol. It’s called (take a breath!) The
Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production
of A Christmas Carol,and, in
deference to Dickens, it requires every one of those qualifiers.

            I’m
a stickler for mentioning the names of a show’s creators (and they’re listed
below), but no special credit for creativity goes to the folks responsible for
this script (and several other “Farndale Townswomen’s Productions” that trash
classics). The plot, basically a blueprint for farcical carrying-on, presents a
rural English group of stagestruck women who put on plays in hopes of rising to
a level of mere incompetence.

            They
are playing their own version of Dickens’ A
Christmas Carol with many substitutes for their intended cast, technical
staff, and equipment. The mysteriously unavailable man who was to have played
Ebeneezer Scrooge, for instance, has been replaced at the last minute by an
unwilling woman. Bob Cratchit and many other roles are portrayed by a
hopelessly infirm woman who suffers various physical attacks during the
performance.

            And
Phoebe Reece — the Farndale director, show’s narrator, and all-around boss
— not only performs roles as varied as Tiny Tim, Fred’s Wife, and The Ghost
of Christmas Yet To Come, but also harangues the audience, interrupts most
scenes with her personal comments, passes out candies, and plays the piano to
lead us all in singing carols. Phoebe may be the most maddening character in
dramatic literature.

            The
one dim-witted male in the Farndale Avenue players, a page-turner named Gordon
Pugh, is enlisted to move heavy scenery and props and to play a few of the key
male roles in the show as well as Mrs. Cratchit. He likes to play pranks and
annoy the women during their performance, not caring that he’s onstage in front
of an audience.

            Shipping
Dock’s new locale is bright and attractive. Its stage is no better equipped
than their former spaces, but it’s in larger and nicer digs, with easy parking,
situated in the heart of Rochester’s arts community. Unfortunately, their
efforts to move in on short notice may have taken time and care from rehearsals
for this entertainment, which looked pretty rough on opening night.

            A
setup as disordered as the Farndale Women’s performances actually requires very
tight control and whiz-by pacing to avoid any semblance of reality and to leave
no time for serious judgment. If the performances start to seem actually inept
or the interruptions get truly annoying, the game is lost. This production is
cast entirely with familiar, accomplished players who all have their amusing
moments, but it did drag on and get leaden on opening night. P. Gibson Ralph’s
hilariously awful set pieces got laughs, but some of their awkward moving
onstage and off was for real.

            And
though Gale Werner was very funny indeed when playing Phoebe Reece in a
Shipping Dock production of this same play many years ago, this time Phoebe’s
endless interruptions and scene-spoiling demands often got tedious. Instead of
laughing, I wanted to tell her to just get on with it.

            I’m
willing to bet that those problems will go away by this weekend. When
performances pull together and start to zip along, Werner will probably get the
laughs that she did before, and her Phoebe will seem amusingly ditzy, not
realistically intrusive.

            The
one scene that deservedly got laughs was the early Scrooge-Marly confrontation
in Scrooge’s bedroom. Standing behind a ridiculous, two-dimensional, vertical
bed, with her head protruding through a cut-out hole in the pillow, Kerry Young
plays deadpan but exasperated Thelma (who is playing Scrooge), while Jerry
Jones’ manic Gordon argues over lines and their meanings instead of playing
Marly’s sinister warning. Young and Jones’ timing was dead-on; Until it was
interrupted, the scene was a model of how the rest of the production should
have worked, and will.

            Maureen
Mines as Felicity has to do yeoman service running all over the stage in a
variety of getups and behaviors. And Maria Scipione endures constant
indignities as poor Mercedes, whose Bob Cratchit and boys’ and women’s roles
all seem to lead to painful accidents that leave her kicking and groaning on
the floor. Complaining but cheerful, Mercedes is also too handicapped to get
anything done or said onstage until so late that it interrupts subsequent
dialogue.

            Nothing
is silent these nights in Shipping Dock’s Christmas show. Nothing is calm. No
character is entirely bright. And there’s certainly no heavenly peace. But the
turmoil may provide theatrical insulin for those sated with more sugary holiday
fare.

The
Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production
of A Christmas Carol,by David McGillivray & Walter Zerlin Jr., directed by Barbara
K. Biddy, plays at Shipping Dock Theatre, 31 Prince
Street, Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.
through December 28. Tix: $20 to $22. Special performances on New Year’s Eve,
Wednesday, December 31, are at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.
232-2250, www.shippingdocktheatre.org

This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2003.