David Coffee as Scrooge backstage before a performance of A Christmas Carol. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
On Christmas Eve the iconic character Ebenezer Scrooge is dragged through a ghost-filled journey to redemption. But this year Charles Dickens transformation story isn t permitted to unfold on stages in front of live audiences.
“A Christmas Carol” has been a nearly 30-year holiday tradition at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverley where David Coffee has embodied Scrooge for 26 seasons. With 2020 s run of performances canceled, we wanted to find out how the upbeat actor is connecting with the grumpy miser s message this most unprecedented year.
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See it on demand through On Stage streaming
Once you activate your link, you have 24 hours to enjoy the show A Christmas Carol is a ghostly-good holiday confection, a sweet candy with a serious center.
And how fans of the timeless literary tale, one that was drawn from the mind and heart of Charles Dickens, enjoy the seasonal spectacle is, well, up to the fan.
For many movies and television shows have found inspiration in Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, and the trio of spirits that have a haunted handle on days gone by, nowadays, and days still to come.
But seeing Scrooge come around, a revelation that requires no spoiler alert, while roaming a stage just feet from where you sit? That s going to require a visit to your local theater, for catching A Christmas Carol, in play form, is all about finding the footlights.
Hello, I’m Times music critic
Mark Swed, this week giving our irreplaceable Carolina A. Miranda a break before Christmas as we keep arts essential. I’m here just in time to point out that this week our most essential composer,
Ludwig van Beethoven unless you care to call him Louis van Beethoven, as a new German biopic does marks what would have been his 250th birthday. So Beethoven is where we’ll start.
A sculpture of Beethoven in Kamp-Lintfort, Germany.
(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)
Music for our times
In his review of the German TV film, Times contributor Robert Abele found it “elegantly tailored” but “never exactly stirring,” which sounds more Louis-like than the Ludwig we all know. I haven’t seen it because I’ve been too busy trying to catch up with all the other things Beethoven. It’s been a full plate. But then, the Beethoven plate is always full. No matter where you are, no matter what you listen to, Beethoven molecules might be in the e