‘Christmas Carol’: Passion, Chance to Tinker at SCR

As director of South Coast Repertory’s “A Christmas Carol” for 20 years, John-David Keller is in charge of one of Orange County’s favorite holiday rituals.

About 10 months ago, Keller let his puckish streak get the better of him and learned how seriously the community takes its most popular yuletide play.

SCR was kicking off a subscription drive and Keller, a charming man with a gleam in his eye, was to give a sales pitch to an audience waiting for the curtain to open on “Of Mice and Men.”

Lacking anything specific to sell--the plays for the coming season hadn’t been chosen--Keller decided to spice up his talk by using a “get-it-while-supplies-last” ploy for the one Mainstage mainstay.

“I said, ‘This may be your last chance to see ‘A Christmas Carol,’ ” Keller recalled.

The next day, he said, people were phoning SCR’s office, dismayed that the theater company would contemplate a Christmas Future without the play. (Keller defended his prank this way: “You have to do something to get their attention.”)

Keller, 61, counts himself among those who can’t imagine a December without SCR’s adaptation by the theater’s dramaturge, Jerry Patch, of the Charles Dickens classic.

Keller defends what he and the theater he calls home have done for two decades. “You name me a play that has the same heart and the same message: the rebirth and reawakening of a man’s feelings. It’s a terrific story, and there isn’t another one like it.”

Has he ever thought about stepping aside as director?

No.

“It’s always been my show and [it] has a great deal of my personality and my feeling about Christmas,” he said. “Maybe what keeps me coming back is I don’t want anybody else to touch it.”

Has another director shown a desire to take a turn roasting the old chestnut?

“No,” Keller said. Then, after a theatrical pause: “I’d kill ‘em.”

Keller has also played every adult male role in the play, including six performances as understudy to Hal Landon Jr., who has monopolized the part of Ebenezer Scrooge through 600 performances.

Landon, a veteran resident member of SCR’s acting company like Keller, requires very little of Keller’s directorial attention.

But that doesn’t mean he feels complacent about a part he knows so well that he can’t recall having flubbed a line. He sees complacency as his enemy.

Landon’s defense against it is the topsy-turvy nature of Dickens’ Scrooge, who changes from callous miser to cheerful benefactor.

“There are aspects of the character I don’t feel I’ve fully realized, and I continue to search and work at it,” said Landon. “There are emotional peaks in the play I’m still trying to find.”

Landon, 58, said his portrayal of Scrooge has evolved from “cantankerous curmudgeon” with a funny streak to “a coldhearted businessman.”

Early on, he searched for clues to Scrooge’s motivations by reading other Dickens tales, focusing especially on “David Copperfield” and “Great Expectations.”

“They followed a boy into manhood, and I wanted to see what [Dickens] had to say about childhood,” Landon said. “That’s an important part of ‘A Christmas Carol.’ A lot of [Scrooge’s character] has to do with what happened to him as a child.”

This year, Landon and Keller tinkered with the scene in which Scrooge is forced to gaze upon his grave. Changing how it’s staged will help Landon project greater depths of terror than in past performances.

“I’m not above scaring children,” Keller said with a sly grin. “I think it’s kind of fun.”