Web posted
December 21, 2006
Bare-bones Dickens
Troupe works through loss of venue, props to stage a hard-times holiday classic
By TERI TIBBETT
JUNEAU EMPIRE
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| Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire |
 Open-air rehearsal: Members of Theatre in the Rough - from left standing, Peter Freer, Ed Christian, Ekatrina Oleksa, Joe Symonoski, Aaron Elmore, Guy Warren, Bob Banghart; from left crouching, Dan Reaume, Katie Jensen, Bill Thompson - rehearse a "Christmas Carol." |
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The fire that burned down Holy Trinity Church earlier this year also burned out the livelihood of Juneau's Theatre in the Rough. The experience gave the actors a new perspective on performing and on community.
"After this dreadful loss, the community reached out to us so immediately - the church community, the downtown region, our audiences - with generous thoughts and donations," said Aaron Elmore, co-artistic director and actor with the company.
"The response was so instantaneous that we've been burdened ever since then to try to give something back. And it seems in this giving season and in the turning of the year, this is a good time to do that for Juneau," he said.
This weekend, the company will perform its fourth production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in a simple, pared-down version of the classic story.
In some ways, it reflects the pared-down condition of the company.
"Not only is it a piece that we love and a piece that we find ourselves continually coming back to in our theater's life, but with the fire in March of this year, all the puppets are gone, all the costumes are gone and all the set pieces are gone," Elmore said.
"All we're left with are the words."
The group will bring Dickens' words to life in a stage play, using the author as the narrator. Actors will portray the roles like an old-style radio play, with a soundscape of audio effects on a sparse and simple set.
"A Christmas Carol" will also be broadcast live from Centennial Hall at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 23, on KTOO-FM.
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Theater
What: "A Christmas Carol," presented by Theatre in the Rough.
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 22; and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 23.
Where: Centennial Hall.
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"What we're trying to do is follow in the same way that it would have been performed (in Dickens' time)," said Katie Jensen, co-artistic director and actor.
"(Dickens) would read it and play all the characters. So we wanted to follow that tradition, but expand it from just one person to a reader's theater setting."
Jensen described the piece as cozy and soulful.
"Soulful because of the season," she said. "But also because this will be the first time we will be up on stage since the fire. And cozy because it's taking it out of a full production mode and putting it more into this radio theater mode - making it closer to people."
"This story, as many stories are, is deeply concerned with redemption but also deeply concerned with what makes us alive, what we really need to be human," Elmore said. "To be real people is to have a community around us."
In a pivotal scene, Scrooge and his nephew, Fred, discuss their differing views on Christmas. Elmore said the passage embodies how he has come to view his experience with the Juneau community:
"(Christmas is) the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow travelers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound by other journeys.
"Therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good and will do me good. And I say God bless it."
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