Syracuse Stage’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ honors tradition with a twist
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As Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted with his first round of ghosts in Syracuse Stage’s “A Christmas Carol,” two acrobats portray phantoms by hanging and twisting above the audience on hammocks while other actors crawl onto the stage to spook the curmudgeon.
“In ‘A Christmas Carol,’ you do not think that (a circus show) is what it should be,” said Managing Director of 2 Ring Circus Ben Franklin. “It’s like, ‘Why is that happening?’ But we are able to create a mystical quality with the ghosts.”
Every December, Syracuse Stage puts on a co-production with the Syracuse University Department of Drama along with senior and youth actors. This year, Artistic Director Bob Hupp wanted to do a show that reflected Syracuse Stage’s 50th anniversary.
He chose “A Christmas Carol” to honor the past as the show has been performed at the Stage nine times, the most of any play at the venue. The production opened on Dec. 1 and will close on Dec. 31.
The version of the show the Stage is putting on is close to the traditional Charles Dickens novella, with parts of the script directly carried over from the book. Melissa Rain Anderson, the show’s director, has been performing the stage adaptation since she was a child.
“I am making sure, every word, just everything is understood by the audience, and so learning how to really slow down everything I’m saying and give meaning to every word,” said Mackenzie Furlett, a senior at SU and a cast member in “A Christmas Carol.”
However, Hupp and Anderson did not want to do the play exactly how it had been done before. Anderson directed last year’s Stage co-production of “The Little Mermaid,” which incorporated the 2 Ring Circus. After the show’s success, she decided to work with the company again on “A Christmas Carol.”
“I’ve always wanted Christmas Past to fly in, and I’ve never been able to do it because if you put her in a harness, then you have to sort of unhook her,” Anderson said. “After all, she flies in and then she has a bunch of scenes where she asked him to sort of be everywhere and you don’t want her to fly everywhere.”
By working with 2 Ring Circus, Anderson saw her dream fulfilled. Using a hammock and a trapeze, Christmas Past can fly and move around freely during scenes. The circus elements keep the performance fresh, Hupp said. The new technological elements, like acrobatics, allow the play to continue to be as exciting and interesting as it has been for the last 50 years of the Stage’s history.
SU drama department students like Furlett also learned from the many older actors who came from the Actors’ Equity Assoication to perform in the play. Anderson said the combination of the performers, young and old alike, allows acting to be passed to the next generation.
Senior and cast member Rileigh Very said the combination of older and younger actors also helped SU drama students feel like professionals. Very is one student who has been able to learn aerial arts from 2 Ring Circus.
Franklin ran two training sessions for anyone in the show performing circus-based elements in the show, including acrobatic and aerial skills. Franklin taught Very last year for “The Little Mermaid.”
“The most unique part about it is, most shows, you just stay on stage and people can watch and feel part of it that way,” Very said. “But I feel like this is us, one foot away from (the audience) and dancing inches away from people.”
The circus started teaching the show’s actors slowly and patiently to make sure all participants were able to learn different combinations, Very said. With so many moving parts, the cast needed to start blocking scenes on stage early and figure out how to balance actors entering through the audience, on hammocks above the seats or on top of Scrooge’s bed.
As they were able to get on stage quickly, actors were able to more easily collaborate. While the process is a learning experience for the student performers, a lot of 2 Ring Circus members have enjoyed coming back to the theater because it’s a chance to “dip their toes” back into acting, Franklin said.
“Combining circus and theater is taking both of the lives and bringing them back together,” Franklin said. “Then we get to come here with a wonderfully supportive production staff, and then students and the young actors and then the professional actors. It’s a joy.”
