Irreverent ‘Inspecting Carol’ Forces the Fun

“Inspecting Carol,” by Daniel Sullivan and his Seattle Repertory Company, is an irreverent backstage romp about funding struggles, political correctness, audience expectations, clashing egos and actors’ “processes.”

Inspired by the Gogol farce “The Inspector General,” it can be a hilarious antidote for one too many holiday stagings of Dickens’ classic, but it needs a cannier touch than its forced jollity at Arroyo Repertory Theatre.

In Sullivan’s play-within-a-play, directed by Jude Lucas, a struggling theater company’s 12th annual “A Christmas Carol” may be its last. Half the subscribers have lapsed, Scrooge insists on expressions of solidarity with the oppressed in Central America, Bob Cratchit is carrying a torch for the director and last year’s Tiny Tim has returned as a hulking adolescent. Worse, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts depends on an evaluation of the company’s work.

Enter an out-of-work actor who is assumed to be the NEA inspector incognito, and soon the fawning company is adopting his every bad idea--from Tiny Tim as a Shakespearean villain to a Christmas Spirit as a Third World baby.

As director Zorah (Mary Burkin) approaches meltdown, the real NEA inspector shows up for the disastrous dress rehearsal.

What should be a mounting tide of zaniness is stemmed by one-note performances and uneven pacing that make every lights-down, lights-up moment an anticlimax. Melody Doyle as the harried stage manager, Joanne McGee as grande dame Dorothy and John Serembe’s agitprop Scrooge fare the best; Burkin’s ladylike precision in speech is wrong for temperamental Zorah and, while Bill Shackford’s “audition” as Richard III is fun, his calculated brashness is less so.

Lights and set on the big auditorium stage are by Doug Rynerson; Lucas did the serviceable costumes.

*

“Inspecting Carol,” Arroyo Repertory Theatre at St. James United Methodist Church, 2033 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 22. $18; closing night, $22. (626) 398-6522. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.