A Christmas Carol At SCR
What began nearly a quarter century
ago as a one-time holiday production for Orange County,
has become the most venerable year-end stage tradition
in Southern California.
We have been going for years and years and would not miss this performance for the world!
South Coast Repertory’s A Christmas Carol, returning November 29 through December 27, retains its familiarity thanks in great measure to Hal Landon Jr., who has spent the last 24 Christmas Eves reliving the harrowing Christmas Eve of his miserly alter-ego, Ebenezer Scrooge. And, in a page out of Scrooge’s book of thrift, Landon still fits in the costume created for the show’s first production in 1980.
Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843 as a novella and watched it become a holiday favorite. Today it is arguably the most-adapted non-Biblical Christmas story. Ebenezer Scrooge is the surviving partner of Scrooge and Marley, a "business" that places profit above all else. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is his usual miserly self, chasing off solicitors for the poor, chastising his sole employee, Bob Cratchit (Whalen), for wanting to take off Christmas Day and insulting his nephew Fred (Shangraw) for celebrating a holiday that "has never put a penny in anyone's pocket." But that night, Scrooge is visited by three spirits (Doyle, Landfield and Winters), who show him the desolate path he has chosen and a chance to avoid it. It is a story that continues to touch hearts, no matter how often it has been seen.