nytheatre.com review <br>by Martin Denton ·
December 7, 2001 <br><br>It wouldn't be Christmas in New
York without at least one new rendition of A Christmas
Carol. What story has quite the same hold on our
collective imagination? This year, in particular, there's an
almost palpable desire to revisit, with Scrooge, ghosts
of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Be and remind
ourselves of the comforts and joys of giving, of service,
of community. It's a voyage you'll be invited to
take over and over again until Christmas Day, on TV,
in the movies and on stage. My advice: let
SourceWorks Theatre's A Queer Carol be one of them.
<br><br><br>For this delightfully witty re-telling of Dickens'
most famous story is at once the hippest, the
funniest, and the warmest stage version that I've come
across this year. Author Joe Godfrey has transplanted it
to contemporary Manhattan, where "Ben" Scrooge is a
sour, tight-lipped, middle-aged interior decorator, a
fussy and repressed old soul with taste and wealth but
no talent for living whatsoever. In his employ is
earnest Bob Cratchit, who toils patiently in Scrooge's
underheated townhouse/office for too little pay and without
the health benefits he desperately needs for his
lover, Tim, who is sick with AIDS. <br><br>&lt;snipped
for length&gt;<br><br>But what may surprise you about
A Queer Carol is how felicitously true to the
original it finally is. Its opening scene, in which Ben
scowls and scoffs at the people around him who are
trying to celebrate Christmas, feels more authentic than
almost any Christmas Carol I can remember: when Scrooge
rants about how the sick should just go ahead and die
and thus decrease the surplus population, the effect
is downright chilling. And later, when Tim, donning
a silly Santa hat (see photo, above) toasts his
loved ones with a heartfelt "God bless us,
everyone!"--well, it really is heartfelt. A tiny tear forms in the
corner of the eye, unexpectedly. <br><br>I'd be remiss
not to tell you that Mark Cannistraro's staging is
flawless and that the ensemble is absolutely first-rate,
led by John Marino as a crusty but redeemable
Scrooge, and featuring J.D. Lynch as a hugely appealing
Cratchit and Dan Pintauro, terrific as both Tim and the
younger version of Scrooge. Henry David Clarke, Nathan
Johnson, Cynthia Pierce, and Yaakov Sullivan do fine work
in various supporting roles; Virginia Baeta is even
better than fine, earning laugh after laugh with her
crackerjack timing and delivery as Bob and Tim's caustic
Dominican lesbian pal Maria. And Michael Lynch very nearly
steals the show as the Ghost of Christmas Present: we
could all use a spirit as life-affirming and
life-embracing as his to rouse us from whatever holiday doldrums
we may have sunk into. Bravo! (Brava?) <br><br>My
only quibble is that Godfrey makes one small misstep
in his adaptation of the story: he posits Scrooge
and Marley as lovers as well as partners, which makes
Ben's misanthropy slightly less understandable. (In
Dickens' story, Scrooge forsakes his one true love in the
name of mammon, a more plausible premise.)
<br><br>Don't let that keep you away from A Queer Carol,
though, which runs for just two more weeks at The Duplex.
You won't find a more good-natured or heartwarming
holiday treat anywhere in New York right now.