Chamberlain's Scrooge not the same old story
30 October 2004

What I love about Richard Chamberlain playing Ebenezer Scrooge is the idea that Charles Dickens' grasping, covetous old skinflint looks as if he just popped back to London after three weeks at a spa in Aruba. I'm not saying he looks fabulous. I'm saying he looks faaaaaaaaaaaaabulous.

When Jacob Marley wraps his menacing chains around Scrooge's neck, you expect the miser to respond with a steely: "Mind the hair." When Chamberlain acts the dastard and wags his Scrooged-up eyebrows in this pushy musical version of "A Christmas Carol" -and aren't the Scrooges falling early this year?- you can't help but notice that it is eyebrow-wagging of a particular, geographically limited sort. Rarely has eyebrow-wagging led to so little movement in the region of the forehead.

The actor last seen on national tour as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound Of Music" became famous as dashing Dr. Kildare and a Catholic mini-series love object in "The Thorn Birds." Now 70, this elegant leading man is a paradox: a hard-working, easygoing veteran of the show business. He is not a lazy performer, and he does not dog this unenviable assignment. He has to work hard, all night, in composer/lyricist/librettist Leslie Bricusse's coy "Christmas Carol" adaptation. Chamberlain tends to sing his lines and speak his songs, saving his pleasantly skillful vocal stuff for a few key ballads. This Scrooge is no mugging comedian, but Chamberlain's emotional investment goes only so far. On the whole, he'd rather be doing "The Philadelphia Story."

The Chamberlain "Scrooge" opened its national tour Thursday at the Oriental Theatre, with an all-Chicago cast below the title. It's the American premiere of a property well-loved in England, for reasons that have something to do with a popular audience's apparently inexhaustible ardor for "A Christmas Carol," and something to do, I suppose, with the songs, which are nothing if not hummable. "Thank You Very Much" repeats its title phrase so often, in fact, you may find yourself mulling a word other than "thank."

The musical started out as a 1970 movie starring Albert Finney. Bricusse then added several tunes for a 1992 stage production, starring Anthony Newley. It traveled far and widely, as has a more recent edition starring Tommy Steele.

What's good about it? Some of the trickery's fun: Paul Kieve, who worked on the latest "Harry Potter" film, handled the illusions wherein ghosts walk through mirrors, spirits appear in armchairs out of nowhere, and Chamberlain's eyebrows wag up and down while his forehead remains absolutely still. To be fair, Chamberlain lands a few crucial, quiet moments when it counts, particularly in a late scene with his nephew inexplicably renamed Harry from the original Fred, just as Scrooge's sister is now Jenny, not Fan.

Of the supporting cast, there are impressive contributions from Roberta Duchak (Christmas Past), Rebecka Reeve (Isabel, or Belle in the original), Karla L. Beard (Bess) and Stephen Wallem (Dick Wilkins). Many of the larger roles are getting less secure, more fake-hearty interpretations, the chief offender being Todd Gross' Bob Cratchit. He and George Keating's Tom Jenkins are perky enough to test even Tiny Tim's patience.

The actors won't have it easy, even after the sound people remedy the most glaring amplification and feedback issues. It would be helpful, too, if they brought the general volume levels down south from the neighborhood of Way Too Loud. (The opening carol, the score's nicest bit, was miked so shrilly opening night, you wanted to yell back: "HEY. We're RIGHT HERE.") Bricusse wrote the "Goldfinger" theme song lyrics, and no one will ever be able to take that away from him. But the "Scrooge" score is all about dull generalities signified by song titles such as "I Hate People" or "I Like Life," and couplets with the worst kind of lyric inevitability: "You were good for me. . . . Did all you could for me." Expressive as wood to me.

Chamberlain survives, barely, with dignity intact. Dignity, however, tends to play better on camera than onstage.

© 2004 Michael Phillips

Back