Don't be a Scrooge and go with the flow

While other theater companies are producing straightforward versions of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" for the holidays, Taproot Theatre is offering a backstage comedy treatment that has more in common with "Noises Off" than it does with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The Dickens classic is performed by "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society," a sloppy (and fictional) British group that all but redefines "amateur."

It's as if the cast of "Absolutely Fabulous" decided to wing it with its own loose version of Scrooge's redemption — throwing in charades, a singalong, a fatally earnest "Dance For Christmas" and a rowdy audience-participation contest (one audience member fought back by flirting with the actor who put a hand on his knee).

Under Scott Nolte's nimble direction, Scrooge becomes a greedy diva who may or may not be dead (the players aren't too sure whether that was Marley's ghost or Scrooge's they just saw). Mrs. Cratchit (Larry Albert) has a beard. And poor Tiny Tim, who tends to get his Bible references mixed up, is treated like a non-entity. No one can get his name right.

The song selection includes "Come Fly With Me," "The Chipmunk Song" and "The Phantom of the Opera," who is momentarily mistaken for one of the ghosts. There's also a seasonal ditty with Monty Python-style lyrics ("Why do turkeys get depressed? It's Christmas.")

"It isn't very Dickensian, is it?" cracks an actor with a gift for understatement.

Eventually the play turns into a showdown between two unstoppable stage hogs: Mrs. Reece (Shellie Shulkin), the meddling motormouth MC, and Thelma (Alyson S. Branner), who has been encouraged by an infatuated vicar to take her modest skills to the West End. As long as Shulkin and Branner are onstage (and they're almost never absent), you're in for a wonderfully silly time.

This play, by the way, is one of more than half a dozen farces about the fictional Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society. The plays are extremely popular as amateur theater fare, but this is Taproot Theatre's first go at one.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com