I used to wonder why the global Spanish Flu pandemic wasn’t memorialized much in the popular culture of the 1920s. All it took was living through the covid crisis a century later to reach a visceral understanding: People wanted to forget about the horrors and move on. Which is probably why the Twenties were so Roaring then and why we aren’t seeing many movies or plays now where the characters wear masks and carry vaccination cards.
But the brilliant minds of Manual Cinema aren’t willing to memory-hole the worst days of 2020 and 2021, and we’re all the richer for it. Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol at Writers Theatre is the collective’s vehicle for facing the trauma head on and then, quite movingly, illuminating a hopeful personal transformation triggered by taking stock of what’s fundamentally important about human connection in the wake of all the death and isolation.
Workaholic Aunt Trudy is hosting a zoom for the family of her partner, Joe, a man who kept the season in his heart so strongly that he produced an annual puppet show version of A Christmas Carol complete with impressive handmade sets. Even though Trudy bah-humbugged her way out of watching the show several times, focusing instead on her all-consuming corporate career, she has gathered everyone around the flickering screens one last time to perform the play herself in homage to Joe, an early covid casualty.
The pandemic works surprisingly well as the metaphorical ghost of Jacob Marley prodding Trudy to finally experience her grief and reconnect with humanity. Manual Cinema’s gothic vibe–complete with ethereal live vocals accompanied by keys, cello, bass and violin here–complements the puppet Christmas Carol just as it has done for shows like Frankenstein at the Court several years ago. Though you know where Scrooge and Trudy’s stories are heading, you savor the journey.
LaKecia Harris does a convincing job of essaying Trudy, a woman who starts off hilariously prickly and hostile to all traditions and people she finds frivolous only to get an emotional wake-up call when a storm glitches the electric supply to the old home she’s about to leave behind and freezes every face on the call.
This is an adaptation of Dickens’ famous Victorian Christmas tale told with puppets, but it is not a show for kids. The little ones will be scared and the older ones will be bored. Think high school and up for this production. But for the adults in the room, it’s a bracing, worthwhile plunge back into those dark, uncertain days we are all in such a hurry to leave behind.
Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol runs through December 24 at Writers Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Liz Lauren
