Blue Bridge brings a warm and uncomplicated retelling of A Christmas Carol to your sitting room
Photo provided.
After an eight-month hiatus and just in time for the holidays, Blue Bridge Repertory returns to the stage with a one-man, live-streamed performance of Charles Dickens’s festive classic,
A Christmas Carol. With its modest set pieces and conservative handling of the novel’s material, director Jacob Richmond’s production offers much-needed comfort in a time of isolation but lags behind more-innovative past adaptations.
Taking the stage in a stove-pipe hat, rich cravat, and frock coat, Stratford and Shaw festival veteran Sanjay Talwar embodies the overactive narrator of Dickens’s tale. Though he goes through all the motions, Talwar never fully steps out of this role and into character. The marvel here lies not, as it has in some of Richmond’s more recent productions, in the actor’s ability to swap appearances but in his command of tone. Talwar voices Scrooge with all the callousness and nasal condescension essential to the irascible miser and Tiny Tim with his signature breathy innocence. Scrooge’s clipped volleys at his too-kind nephew, whose Christmas spirit is unassailable in Talwar’s jocund rendering, showcase the veteran’s uncommon versatility.