An Adaptation Out of Christmas Past

Patrick Stewart says his life as an actor came into balance in 2001. The Royal Shakespeare Company veteran and “Star Trek” icon starred in two plays and worked on two films, achieving the equilibrium he had been seeking between stage and screen.

The 61-year-old Englishman did not anticipate returning to the stage to end the year, but Sept. 11 changed his plans. In a show of solidarity with New York City, he is offering the first revival since 1996 of his acclaimed one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” His two performances in Los Angeles this weekend are warmups for a week of benefit performances on Broadway starting Dec. 24. On Dec. 16, TNT will broadcast a 1999 film version of “A Christmas Carol,” with Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge.

Stewart is perhaps best known for his hitch aboard the Starship Enterprise from 1987 to 1994, playing Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Stewart/Picard and the other key crew members recently re-upped for their fourth feature spinoff from the series. “Star Trek: Nemesis” began production last month.

On a van ride from his trailer on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood to the commissary, where he was interviewed, Stewart pointed out a futuristic-looking silver dune buggy that he has been jockeying through a desert location for the cameras. Stewart said he could divulge no more about the film, but he spoke expansively about “A Christmas Carol,” which he created in 1988.

Question: What drew you to “A Christmas Carol?”

Answer: In the mid-1980s I was on location in northern England for a film called “Lady Jane.” It was a very bad day; heavy rain kept me at the hotel. I looked at the paperbacks in an old oak bookcase in the residence lounge and took down the slimmest one. It was “A Christmas Carol,” and as I read on down the first page, it occurred to me, to my surprise, that although I had seen countless versions, including Mr. Magoo, I had never read the book. When I finished, I found my face was wet with tears. And I was a little irritated, because I had been aware of how Dickens was jerking at my heartstrings.

At times I thought I was resisting it, but finally it proved to be stronger than my resistance. I found myself asking why I should be so touched by this very familiar and, in a sense, rather hackneyed story. It was the whole issue of redemption in the book. Scrooge has isolated himself from his fellow creatures, shut himself up in this obsession with holding on to everything that he possessed, and then at the very last minute, when it was almost too late, being given, and accepting, a chance to do better.

Q: Was something taking place in your life at the time that intensified the book’s impact on you?

A: I’m sure there was. I was in my mid-40s and maybe beginning to wonder what I had done with my life and what role I was playing in the world. There has to come a point when you ask yourself, “Is play-acting enough when there are so many other apparently more useful things you might do?” Jump forward to the second season of “The Next Generation” series. I was scared. Scared of getting trapped exclusively in the world of television, of not being able to get back onstage. I’d heard of actors who’d lost their stage nerves. So weekends I began creating for myself a handful of solo shows, of which “A Christmas Carol” was one. And the only condition was that I ought to be able to pack them in the trunk of my car and take them off to a college campus or a community center or wherever anybody would have me.

Q: How many roles do you play in the show?

A: I believe there are 39. Kate Elliott, my stage manager, claims she’s counted 42. Somebody once claimed that they saw me be the pudding, but I don’t recall it. I do the door-knocker, the pathetic little flames in Scrooge’s fireplace, the church bells, all the sound effects.

The characters are marvelous, but what this version gives an audience that others cannot is Dickens’ own voice--the narration, the storytelling part of it, which normally has to get left out of any dramatic adaptation.

Q: Why revive it now, after not performing it the past four Christmases?

A: It was a chance conversation with a friend in New York, a few days after Sept. 11. I was in England for my return to the English stage for the first time in 14 years in a conventional play, and all I knew was that I wanted to be in New York. My friend said, “How I wish you were doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ this year!” That was all it took. The sense of helplessness we all felt that there was nothing one could do was in part what persuaded me to do this. “Well, I can put on this show.”

Q: Are there moments in this play when the emotions become so powerful that your effectiveness as an actor is in danger of being compromised by your feelings as a person?

A: Oh yes, several. There is a moment during the Cratchits’ Christmas party when Dickens the narrator says, “They were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time.” I find that very powerful, especially that last phrase, “contented with the time.” I think Dickens is speaking of the time that is wasted in longing or wishing that something were different, in waiting for the future, brooding on the past, instead of seeing the great, glorious benefits that are in the here and now. Even in the hardest times, the Cratchits are “happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time.” And that’s almost a miracle.

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“A Christmas Carol,” Luckman Fine Arts Complex, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles. Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 3 p.m. $35-$45. (323) 343-6600.