A costly ‘Carol’s’ woes

Four hundred fifty-seven dollars.

That is how much I paid, in this economy, to take my family to see “A Christmas Carol” at the Kodak Theatre on Dec. 22 [“A Haunted Production,” by F. Kathleen Foley, Dec. 25]. After the nearly unmitigated disaster it turned out to be, I might just as well have saved the money and gone to a high school production. That would have been both more professional and less expensive.

The production staff at the Kodak needs to go back to theater school. Between problems with the sound, scrims that didn’t fly or flew prematurely and then sheepishly crept back up or down, spirits that failed to materialize, stagehands visibly running back and forth brandishing flashlights, and late set changes that, in one case, forced poor, excellent Christopher Lloyd to remain frozen onstage through more than three long, flop-sweat-filled, silent moments until the scene was ready, it was a squirming experience to be in the audience.

And really, when the production quickly became a bad joke of one technical catastrophe after another, what else could we do but laugh?

Mary Nemnich

San Bernardino