An American ‘Carol’

Is there any Southern California actor who can claim to own a role the way Hal Landon Jr. owns Ebenezer Scrooge? He has been playing the part since South Coast Repertory dramaturge Jerry Patch developed his own version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in 1980.

So, Landon has been exploring Scrooge since the start of the Reagan administration, since gas prices were sky-high and before hardly anyone owned a personal computer. Landon is such an interesting actor that he subtly makes us aware, during his performance in his 19th year in the role, that he has been doing his exploration during an unprecedented era of American wealth, greed and avarice.

This is an American Scrooge on SCR’s Mainstage in Costa Mesa, which is why Landon barely even bothers with a London accent. He and Patch, with director John-David Keller, intend to make this our own national “Christmas Carol,” in which a crotchety, bah-humbugging old man gripes that the poor can’t earn a living like he does, that they don’t deserve a farthing of public welfare, and besides, why don’t we build more prisons if we need them?

It could be that Patch concocted “A Christmas Carol” in response to the start of the Reagan era, but now in 1998, with welfare reform and a general public disdain for the homeless, this “Carol” continues to hold considerable power as a social and political fable.

Landon makes it a human one. During one revealing moment, after Scrooge has reluctantly let his assistant Bob Crachit (a deeply sympathetic David Whalen) go home on Christmas Eve, the old man is alone in his office, working away. Landon mutters and fidgets and stirs, hinting that as much as Scrooge is unhappy with “the fools” he must daily deal with, he is even unhappier with himself.

This humanity has its happy side too, and kids in the audience giggle in a kind of relief when Scrooge, having run the gantlet of three spirits and one ghost (Don Took is an especially scary Marley), realizes he’s still alive and literally jumps into his top hat.

It’s difficult for the large household scenes in “Christmas Carol” not to be a little boring next to the ghost business, but Art Koustik and Martha McFarland as Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig raise festive spirits, and the imagined loss of Tiny Tim by the grieving Crachit family makes for a truly moving stage picture.

*

In his first year in the role, William Francis McGuire makes a strong, complex impression as the disturbed Spirit of Christmas Present. By contrast, this is the only SCR show during the year when you can see all five of the theater’s original founding actors, many of them onstage at once: Landon, McFarland, Koustik, Took and Richard Doyle as a genteel Ghost of Christmas Past.

For the record, that’s five actors with the same theater for 34 years.

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* “A Christmas Carol,” South Coast Repertory Mainstage, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Fridays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Sundays and Dec. 24, 12 noon and 4 p.m. Ends Dec. 27. $20-$38. (714) 708-5555. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

Hal Landon Jr.: Ebenezer Scrooge

David Whalen: Bob Crachit

Martha McFarland: Mrs. Fezziwig/Solicitor

Art Koustik: Mr. Fezziwig/Joe

William Francis McGuire: Spirit of Christmas Present

Richard Doyle: Spirit of Christmas Past/Gentleman

Don Took: Jacob Marley’s Ghost/Spirit of Christmas Yet-to-Come

Howard Shangraw: Fred/Gentleman

Devon Raymond: Mrs. Crachit/Rich Woman

Richard Soto: Ebenezer as a Young Man/Undertaker

Susannah Schulman: Belle/Scavenger

Hisa Takakuwa: Sally/Toy Lady

A South Coast Repertory production. Adapted by Jerry Patch. Directed by John-David Keller. Set: Cliff Faulkner. Lights: Donna and Tom Ruzika. Costumes: Dwight Richard Odle. Sound: Garth Hemphill. Music director: Dennis Castellano. Choreography: Linda Kostalik.