The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Christmas Eve is here. Tonight visions of sugar plums, Pastorelas and Christmas tamales will dance in the heads of los niños across the Old Pueblo and I will remember my old friend Ebenezer Scrooge.
I know Scrooge well because I have portrayed the old buzzard countless times on stage.
My acquaintance with Ebenezer began decades ago when The Diaper Bank asked me to write a parody of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”— with a Tucson twist. ’Twas a hit at the Fox. Clarence Dupnik, Bob Elliot, Lupita Murillo, Bob and Beth Walkup and other local celebs played along with us as I updated the silliness every year, always casting myself as Scrooge because it’s so much fun to portray the old buzzard.
Portraying Scrooge’s spiritual transformation calls for a skilled actor with range and great theatrical experience. In short, a 150-pound glazed ham with just the right scarf and mittens. I am that ham.
And I love Dicken’s Christmas classic. It’s my favorite political tract, an enduring fable that argues the virtue of all of us adopting a more charitable role in advancing social and economic justice. I’m surprised it’s not banned for arguing compassion towards the less fortunate, with its strong, anti-miser, soft-on-crime, pro-health care message derided as a humbug, saddling poor entrepreneur Scrooge with feeling bad about those in need and want. For some, these ideas are more disturbing than any howling ghost could be. And that’s why I love this classic by Dickens, the great reformer.
Here are my tips for portraying Scrooge.
First one must master scowling. Practice the following lines:
“Humbug”
“Are there no workhouses?”
“Well then, let them die and decrease the surplus population!”
Once your pets fear you, you’re ready for step two, mastering the physicality of the old miser. After a lifetime hunched over your ledgers counting your coins, you’re a bent old curmudgeon. You were born to snarl.
“Mr. Scrooge, it’s colder than a stage director’s heart. Might I toss a coal in the prop stove?”
I love this next line. “No!”
Let Cratchit have his stage fun. “A wee aromatherapy candle from 4th Avenue, Mr. Scrooge?”
“No!”
“A mesquite log I found in the arroyo out back?”
This next “No!” should win you a Tony Award. “No!”
“Pine bundle from Fry’s?”
This next “No!” should win you a Grammy Award. “No!”
“Some ham fat I found backstage?”
Clear your fireplace mantle for the Oscar you’ll earn with this, “No!”
Step three of mastering your Scrooge is learning to evoke boos and hisses from your audience. When you ask, “Are there no prisons?! No workhouses?!” say it with such contempt for humanity your audience must boo. The deeper and longer the chorus of boos, the better the cheers you’ll evoke with your character’s transformation into a humane soul in the last act.
When your Scrooge is visited by a number of spirits, they will try to steal your scene with their overacting. There’s “Jacob Marley”, moaning and rattling his chains like he’s auditioning for “Poltergeist 3”. There’s “Christmas Past,” always a miscast vixen and “Christmas Present,” the goblet swilling windbag who thinks he’s playing “Falstaff” and the worst scene stealer of all, “Christmas Future,” the producer’s kid in a black sheet. Ignore those amateurs. You’ve got the spotlight in the final act. Your star turn is coming.
For your finale, practice saying your lines with giddy joy and unmatched delight. Rehearse your lines with your kids. Wake them with the sunrise, bright and early:
“Tell me, boy, what day is it?”
“I’m your daughter. School’s out. Let me sleep.”
“Say, ‘Why it’s Christmas day, sir, that’s what day it is!’ “
“Go away.”
“What? You say it’s Christmas Day, lad! Well, bless my soul!”
“I’m. Trying. To. Sleep. Go. Away.”
“Is that ostrich from Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch still hanging up in the butcher shop down on the corner?”
“I’m a vegetarian. I hate you. Go away.”
Follow my tips and you will be the best possible Scrooge you can be. Especially when he wakes up a changed old buzzard. Don’t eat the day of your performance because you will chew up the scenery!
One more tip from this holiday ham. To convincingly portray the most famous miser in western lore you must study Christmas well, to embrace it as well as your friend, old Scrooge, comes to embrace it. By the time the curtain falls we must believe you believe with all your heart in the possibility of redemption and rebirth, that you will “be better than your word” and “it will always be said of you, you knew how to keep Christmas well, if any alive possessed the knowledge.”
For that, along with Christmas tamales and sugar plums, is what awaits us on Christmas Eve.
CNN recently offered readers some pointers for picking out the perfect gift for loved ones during the holiday seasons.
