Just before Christmas of 2008, some friends took me to a play that will linger forever in my memory as the biggest disaster I ever saw on a stage. What follows is the review I posted here on December 23 of that year and it was one of the most-read things I ever put up there. Why? Because the Los Angeles Times in its review of the show linked to this as a kind of independent corroboration of what they said. Amazingly, the producer of this show tried to mount another production of A Christmas Carol in another city the following year with a different all-star cast but it never opened because, among other reasons, some of the stars he advertised hadn't agreed to be in it. Here's what resulted when he tried it in '08…
There are evenings in the theater and there are evenings in the theater. Last night, I had an evening in the theater. My friends Paul Dini and Misty Lee had an extra ticket for the opening of a new production of Mr. Dickens's A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood — the same venue where the Academy Awards are held. It was to star Christopher Lloyd as Scrooge, supported by John Goodman, Jane Leeves and Jane Seymour with "A Special Appearance by" Gene Wilder. Unmentioned in most of the advertising was that Mr. Wilder would not be there; that his performance would be handled by a pre-recorded hologram.
Several years ago, some actors I knew wrote a play about a play where everything that could go wrong on stage went wrong on stage. It was called Footlight Frenzy and it was quite hilarious. Alas, in one of those coincidences that haunt the entertainment business, it came out almost simultaneously with another play about a play where everything that could go wrong on stage went wrong on stage. It was called Noises Off, and it was a bigger hit to the point where few people saw Footlight Frenzy…a shame since it was the funnier of the two screw-up plays.
It's now in second place with Noises Off in third. Opening night of A Christmas Carol at the Kodak, so many things went wrong that the audience couldn't keep from laughing and ultimately, neither could the actors.
Our first inkling that things would be far from perfect came when we sat down in the theater and opened our program books. Out tumbled one of those little slips that told you there'd be a cast substitution. This one was unusually chatty and I quote it in full…
The role of Christmas Past is now played by Jane Noseworthy.
Jane Seymour had to withdraw from the play after contracting a severe bronchial inflection. She felt that she wouldn't be able to perform to the best of her abilities and be able to give the audiences 100% while suffering this illness. The producers and Jane agreed that it would be in the best interest of all parties for her not to continue with the production.
We all sighed and remarked on how the producers had done a good job of more or less keeping this a secret until we were inside and seated. (Ms. Seymour's name was still on all the posters all over the Kodak Theater.) We also noted the irony of an actress named Jane withdrawing because of a respiratory problem and being replaced by an actress named Jane Noseworthy.
Under the first announcement, on the same slip of paper, we also learned…
The role of Marley is now played by Barry Cutler.
Gene Wilder was to have appeared as a special effect using a hologram; the producers decided that it would not be effective in the production.
This was probably the first time much of the audience learned that Gene Wilder was never going to be on the stage at the Kodak at all…and now, even his hologram wasn't going to be there. In light of what happened later, it's pretty obvious of the reason: They simply couldn't make the hologram work.
Another ominous sign: A Christmas Carol is set in the Victorian era. Someone might have kept that in mind when they picked out the music being played before the play commenced. It was "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt. (During intermission, we got "The Most Wonderful Time" by Andy Williams.)
Then the show started and so did the problems. Most of them were the fault of the tech crew. A pre-recorded narration, using passages from Dickens, was supposed to cover each scene change but they were rarely able to get the sets placed during the allotted time. Time after time, the curtain came down on a scene, the voiceover would play…and then it would finish and we'd sit there staring at a curtain for a minute or two while the crew raced to get a set set up. Finally, the curtain would rise…and sometimes it would then come down again because the stagehands were still out there arranging things. Or sometimes, they'd dart off the stage.
One time, they started playing the narration while Christopher Lloyd and the Ghost of Christmas Past were still on stage with another minute of dialogue to go before the scene change. Twice, they brought in the wrong backdrop…and only brought it in halfway. Some scene pieces were in the wrong place and you could see actors scrambling to get on and off stage because entrances and exits weren't where they were supposed to be.
In the first act, there's a scene where Scrooge returns to his home and he's supposed to see an image of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, on the knocker on the front door. I guess this was going to be done via some sort of projection but we never saw it. When the stage crew set the scene, they left the front door wide open.
There was a long wait and you could hear whispering in the wings, which I guess was because they were trying to figure out what to do about this. The decision was to press ahead, so Mr. Lloyd entered and muttered some incomprehensible ad-lib dialogue about Marley, then entered the house. Apparently thinking his microphone was now off (it wasn't), he began to complain to someone backstage, "The door was open!"
And on it went. Things began to get a little better in the second act. John Goodman made his entrance as the Ghost of Christmas Present and got a tremendous ovation. Through sheer energy, he began to elevate the proceedings…but then we had a series of missed cues and some forgotten lines and we were back into a live Bloopers show. Christopher Lloyd did a magnificent job of pretending all was normal and carrying on but by the last few scenes, even he couldn't deny the obvious.
After the ghosts renovate Scrooge's soul, there's a moment when he needs to get out of his nightshirt and into his street clothes hurriedly. Lloyd dashed behind a screen to change and suddenly, there came the loud and unmistakable sound of modern-day Velcro® and a burst of laughter from the audience. You could hear Christopher Lloyd giggling and also struggling with the costume change…and finally, he announced, "If I didn't know better, I'd think the spirits were screwing with my clothes!"
For the rest of the play, everyone was snickering and Mr. Lloyd — sounding less and less like Ebenezer Scrooge and more and more like the Right Reverend Jim Ignatowski — was doing body language and gestures that said to the audience, "Yeah, I know…let's just get through it." There was much laughter in places that should not have evoked laughter. At the end, he and the cast got a tremendous standing ovation for sheer persistence and courage under fire. Lesser performers would have walked off the stage in mid-performance, headed across the promenade to the food court and applied for jobs at Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick.
This was the first of fourteen performances through January 4 and I assume things will get better. They'd pretty much have to. Christopher Lloyd is a fine actor and if he'd had half a chance to be as even half as good as he could be, he'd probably have been quite good…right up there with great Scrooges of the past like Alastair Sim and Quincy Magoo.
There could even be a memorable performance in this production. As it was, the first night was memorable but not in the way that was intended. As we exited, the audience was still chuckling and itemizing the errors. I overheard one gent ask his companion, "Was there anyone who didn't screw up?" The answer was, "Yes…Jane Seymour."