‘Tis the season, apparently, for theatrical minimalism. Two Christmas-themed shows opened recently in Miami, and both opt for casts of one, hoping the ambience of the world around these single-actor shows can bring their messages to life.
The actors in question, both of regional renown, are Ken Clement in “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol,” running through Jan. 1 at Actor’s Playhouse, and Michael McKeever in “The SantaLand Diaries,” running through Sunday at the Arsht Center.
“Christmas Carol” is the more audacious of the two shows, in that Clement plays no less than 18 characters in a frenzy of tonal shifts and vocal variety. Of the literally hundreds of adaptations, parodies and spin-offs of Charles Dickens’ iconic novella, this has to be one of the most creative. It filters the familiar story of seasonal redemption through the lens of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s shackled business partner who visits the crotchety miser from beyond the grave.
We encounter Marley just he’s given up the ghost and has subsequently become one. Banished ostensibly to a hellish afterlife in which apparitions display their worldly sins like scarlet letters, Marley has but one escape from eternal damnation: to return to Earth and warm Scrooge’s heart. Like the premise of an action movie, he has just 24 hours to complete this seemingly insurmountable task, with the help of a diminutive sidekick named Bogle. The rest of the play consists of Marley realizing the limitless potentials of his new form – from guises to time travel to the conjuring of other spirits – that coalesce into the “Christmas Carol” story as we know it.
All of this is delivered in a beautiful, eloquent and timeless storytelling fashion; all that’s missing is the campfire. It’s a work that feels ready-made for radio, with its scene-setting sound design of clunking chains and gusting winds by Alexander Herrin. Patrick Tennent’s lighting design is just as extraordinary – the show is lit by dozens of hanging lanterns, cued to shine all at once or at different times, sometimes at varying levels of brightness, in addition to overhead lights illuminating beams of red, green and yellow when the mood fits. Given the austerity of Gene Seyffer’s scenic design – a desk, chair, trunk, side table and dressing screen is all Clement has to work with across the spartan, multi-tiered stage – these elements are essential to hooking an audience into the time, space and mood, and Actor’s Playhouse does a bang-up job at them.
Clement, in the end, is most responsible for the show’s engrossing nature. From the American-sounding narrator to Cockney supporting players, his line memorization is massive, his contribution Herculean. A big role for a big man, Clement masters every emotion from meekness to thundering anger, bringing pluck and vivacity to even the most peripheral characters. This is a must-see.
Meanwhile, the other solo show of the season, “The SantaLand Diaries,” receives a sluggish treatment from Zoetic Stage. This one-man show, adapted from David Sedaris’ memoir about his employment as an Elf at Macy’s SantaLand display in Herald Square, is presented with a flimsy set and lackluster direction by Stuart Meltzer. That the experience is so subpar is surprising given that the theater company, under Meltzer’s astonishing direction, recently closed one of the best productions of the year in “Captiva” (more about that in my South Florida theater top 10 countdown of 2011, which I’ll post next week).
The show features McKeever prancing – or, more accurately, plodding – about the gift-wrapped stage in a plastered smile and degrading elf apparel, discussing life as one of Santa’s helpers: the absurdity of the job interview process, the insanity-inducing repetition, the numerous elfin protocols, the egomaniacal Santas and the strange people who wait on line.
McKeever, who flubbed a number of lines during the performance I attended, comes off as uninspired by the material, and I can’t blame him. Sedaris is a great writer in print, but this time at least, none of his observations are as funny as they should be, or as snarky, or as irreverent. At best, it’s a tamely cute diversion anchored by the occasional snippet of effective social commentary: The merriment of Christmas, the show implies, doesn’t prevent revelers from acting like savages when they don’t get their way. The humor falls so flat that I ended up desiring more serious observations like this one.
