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A different 'Christmas Carol'
A 1994 version of the Dickens classic tells the story from Jacob Marley's point of view, offering Scrooge's dead business partner his own shot at redemption.
By ROBERT HICKS
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 5, 2002
Chicago actor and playwright Tom Mula thinks Jacob Marley got a raw deal in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Marley, you'll recall, is Ebenezer Scrooge's dead business partner. Seven years after his death, he appears before Scrooge on Christmas Eve as a ghost weighed down by chains, cash boxes and padlocks, and offers him a chance to change his miserly ways and gain redemption in life.
Eleven years ago, Mula got the idea for his play, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol. He was playing Scrooge in the annual production of A Christmas Carol at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. One day after a matinee, he lunched with director Terry McCabe and McCabe's young daughter Hazel Flowers McCabe. From their conversation, the idea arose that Dickens unfairly portrayed Marley.
The idea around rattled in Mula's head for the next three years. Mula recalled that Marley's ghost had told Scrooge, "You have a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of procuring redemption."
"I've been familiar with the story for a real long time," Mula said. "Actually, Hazel said, 'Jacob Marley got a raw deal.' It's an opinion I had always shared. I thought it was unfair. It started to gnaw at me and bother me. Then ideas for a backstage story about Marley started to come to me. I wanted Marley to be much more involved in Scrooge's redemption than just appearing once to warn him, then disappearing forever."
Mula's 1994 play, which opens Tuesday at Tampa's Gorilla Theatre, is a fun, humorous and fantastical journey about redemption, forgiveness and belief in the intrinsic goodness of humankind.
"I think of it as an affectionate, respectful sideline to the Dickens," Mula said. "It's very entertaining, but it has a sense of humor and power that's all its own."
Mula first read his play in 1994 at the Goodman's Studio Theatre. One year later, Adams Media published a book version, which was a Chicago Tribune bestseller. Mula played all the roles in his play's 1998 premiere at the Goodman Theatre. That year, the play won Chicago's After Dark Award, the Cunningham Prize from the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University and the AFIM Indie Award. Later, an audio version was broadcast nationally on National Public Radio.
[Publicity photo]
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Actor Eric Davis plays the four main characters, including Jacob Marley’s ghost, wrapped in chains, plus 22 other minor characters in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol.
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For Gorilla Theatre's production, Crystal Solana Bryan directs actor Eric Davis, who plays four main characters -- Marley, Scrooge, Record Keeper and Bogle -- as well as 22 other minor characters. "It's just so full of everything you want in a play. All the characters undergo some kind of basic change," Bryan said.
A narrator takes us on a horrific, witty and fanciful tour of Marley's afterlife and his assignment to redeem Scrooge.
"As far as Bogle goes, I needed a sidekick, a confidant for Marley," Mula said. "Bogle started off as an image of Marley's soul. That's why he is so small. Then he became a tormentor and a spirit guide. He's very mean but pretty funny. He lightens the mood in hell and also shepherds Marley around from place to place and from revelation to revelation. The Record Keeper is a standard Peter figure or God."
Mula's premise is that Marley got a raw deal in the Dickens story because he was left shackled in hell with no ability to redeem himself.
Marley's only way out is to try to change Scrooge's heart, but he's reluctant to do so at first, because he believes Scrooge was even more miserly and unpleasant than he was in life.
"We see Marley's past instead of Scrooge's past," Bryan said. "We see what it was like to be Marley growing up, and we see the association with Scrooge through Marley's eyes. When Scrooge took over the company, it killed Marley. That's a whole new take on the story."
As Mula's story progresses, Marley experiences fear and pity. He helps Scrooge to pity the poor and to fear his death, thereby helping him to gain redemption. Marley literally becomes the Ghost of Christmas Present. He feels joy. That gives him the ability to take Scrooge's place with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Marley finds his redemption through his dealings with his impish companion Bogle and the Record Keeper, who counts the debits and credits for those trapped in the spirit world.
Unlike Scrooge, Marley finds his redemption less through fear than through compassion for humankind.
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PREVIEW: Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, Tuesday through Dec. 22, Gorilla Theatre, 4419 N Hubert Ave., Tampa. 7 p.m. $20 general, $15 seniors and students, $8 ages 12 and under. RSVP (813) 879-2914.
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