A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol
A Ghost Story of Christmas
Play Companion
Photo of Edward Gero as Scrooge by Scott Suchman.
A Christmas Carol
Written by Charles Dickens
Adapted by Michael Wilson
Directed by Michael Baron
November 20, 2010—January 2, 2011
www.fords.org
WELCOME TO FORD’S THEATRE!
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Welcome to Ford’s Theatre Society’s Play
Companion for A Christmas Carol!
Author
Dickens.........................................
........................................ 33
Author Bio:
Bio: Charles
Charles Dickens
The
Tradition
of Author................................................
Readings ................................ 44
Music
and Redemption
This guide is designed to support and enrich Thematic
Exploration:
Redemption .............................. 45
A Civil War
Christmas ..................................................
the experience of seeing a Christmas Carol. A
Civil
War Christmas..................................................
The
Industrial
Revolution and Covent Garden..............56
Christmas
.........................................
Adapting A
Context:
TheCarol
Industrial
Revolution .............. 67
On many pages, you’ll find questions for Historical
Costumes:
Imagining
Marley
........................................
discussion or journaling at the bottom. Adapting A Christmas Carol......................................... 78
Activities......................................................................
Imagining Marley ........................................ 89
Throughout these pages, we explore Costumes:
Vocabulary
and Resources............................................910
historical context, theatrical techniques and Activity Page.................................................................
contemporary connections. A bibliography Additional Resources .................................................... 10
on the last page provides resources for
further inquiry. Please feel free to print out
as many copies as you like.
Lincoln reads to his son Tad, 1864. Photo by Mathew Brady.
Play Companions will be produced for all of
our remaining shows this season, including
The Carpetbagger’s Children and Liberty
Smith. We hope you will join us!
For group sales information, please call (202)
638-2367. For more information on our
educational programming, please call (202)
638-2941
ext.
567
or
email
education@fords.org.
We hope you enjoy the show!
Created by Nicole Murray
THANK YOU
American Airlines is the official airline of Ford’s Theatre.
Amtrak is the official rail sponsor of Ford’s Theatre.
Production made possible by Lead Sponsor AT&T
and Sponsors BAE Systems; Siemens; Occidental Petroleum Corporation; General Motors.
Ford’s Theatre Stages Built by The Home Depot.
Chevron, a 2010-2011 Season Sponsor.
Ford’s Theatre is grateful to the following for their generous support of educational programming:
BP America
Central Children’s Charities, Inc.; D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Dimick Foundation; Humanities
Council of Washington, D.C.; Mars Foundation; Marshall B. Coyne Foundation, Inc.; The Max and Victoria Dreyfus
Foundation Inc.; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; National Education Association and Target.
2
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, a town on
the southern coast of England. Dickens’s childhood provided much
inspiration for his later writings: When Charles was 12, his father was
imprisoned for having too much debt, and Charles was sent to work in a
“blacking factory” for three years. For 10 hours a day, Charles would paste
labels onto jars of shoe polish. His experiences at the factory were revisited
in the horrible treatment undergone by his characters in David Copperfield
and Oliver Twist.
Like many writers of his day, Charles Dickens began his writing career as a
journalist, reporting on goings-on at Parliament. His access to publishers
helped him get his stories into print. Today we know of Dickens’s works as
long, complete books, but most of his work was originally published
serially. Similar to our modern television series, shorter episodes of
Dickens’s books would be published monthly in small booklets, sold for just a shilling each. Each new episode
would build interest as readers shared their reactions and wondered together what the next installment would
bring. His first popular series, The Pickwick Papers, ran in papers from April 1836 to November 1837. The
success of this project catapulted Dickens’s career as a novelist.
These and the next few years of Dickens’s life were busy ones:
He was married to Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and she gave
birth to the first of their 10 children early the next year.
He also wrote two of his more famous novels, Oliver Twist
and Nicholas Nickleby.
Charles Dickens took his first trip to America in 1842.
He was not impressed with what he saw; his chronicle
of the trip published the following year, American
Notes, was critical of many common American
practices—he was disgusted by the chewing (and
spitting!) of tobacco and horrified by the keeping of
slaves. This publication made him unpopular in
America for a while.
Dickens’s most famous creation, A Christmas Carol,
was published in 1843. At the time, the celebration of
Christmas was waning as economic and social
conditions worsened, a result of the Industrial
Revolution. Rather than write a pamphlet on the injustices
he saw around him, Dickens presented his Christmas Carol,
a story in which the redemptive power of Christmas
overcomes the prevailing economic and social inequities of the
time. A Christmas Carol went a long way toward resurrecting the
celebration of Christmas in England.
Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball by John Leech, 1843.
Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.
Above right is a drawing of Fezziwig’s Ball by John Leech. This illustration appeared in the first printing
of A Christmas Carol in 1843. Compare this drawing to the Fezziwig scene that you saw at Ford’s
Theatre, and others you may have seen in films or on TV. How is it similar or different?
3
CAROL’S CAROLS
Music plays an important role in the Ford’s Theatre production of A Christmas Carol. Below is a list of some of
the Christmas Carols that are performed in the play. Which ones do you recognize? Which ones are religious?
Good King Wenceslas
Dancing Day
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Carol of the Bells
O Christmas Tree
The Wassail Song
What Child is This?
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
The Holly and the Ivy
Angels We Have Heard on High
Barbara Allen
In the Bleak Mid-Winter
I Saw Three Ships
Dona Nobis Pacem
Silent Night
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Joy To The World
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Deck the Halls
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
What songs does your family sing around the holidays?
What do those songs tell you about your shared history and culture?
REDEMPTION
One of the major themes of A Christmas Carol is redemption, the
chance to make up for past wrongdoings and mistakes by
changing your ways. In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is a
miser who looks down on the poor and treats everyone around him
with contempt. Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former
business partner, Jacob Marley, and three Christmas Spirits. They
convince him that it is not too late to become a kind and generous
man (and escape Marley’s fate of having to wear heavy chains for
eternity).
Drew Eshelman as the ghost of Jacob Marley and Edward
Gero as Ebenezer Scrooge in the 2009 Ford’s Theatre
If we look closely, we can find instances of redemption all
production of Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” directed by
Michael Baron. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
around us. It is a popular theme in
sports, where teams who have lost
games look toward future games to redeem themselves. In fact, the 2008 U.S.
Olympic Basketball team was nicknamed the “Redeem Team,” as they were
looking to win back the gold medal lost by 2004’s “Dream Team.”
Though this example is famous, redemption can be found in our daily lives
as well. When criminals pay their debt to society, they often work hard to
behave and sometimes participate in community service to achieve
redemption. When a student performs poorly on a test, she may study extra
hard next time to redeem herself (and her grade). An older brother may be
very kind to his kid sister after being mean.
What are some ways that you or people you know have tried
to redeem themselves? How do they compare to Scrooge?
The Last of the Spirits by John Leech, 1843.
4
A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS
John T. Ford first opened a theatre at the current Ford’s
Theatre site in 1861, around the same time as the beginning of
the Civil War. What was Christmas like during the bloodiest
war in American history?
The first Christmas of the Civil War was a sobering one for the
American people. Both sides in the conflict had anticipated a
short war, but the humiliating defeat of Union forces at
Manassas on July 21, 1861, brought the realization that it was
going to be a long and bloody conflict. As winter set in and
Christmas approached, the country experienced a far different
Christmas than it had just a year earlier. Confederate Admiral
“Civil War Christmas,” Thomas Nast, 1863, Harper’s Weekly.
Raphael Semmes, at sea aboard the C.S.S. Sumter on this
Christmas Day, observed this change in his crew and noted it in his journal:
Not the least curious of the changes that had taken place since the last Christmas Day was the change in their
own official positions. They were, most of them, on that day, afloat under the old flag. That flag now looked to
them strange and foreign. They had some of their own countrymen on board; not, as of yore, as welcome
visitors, but as prisoners. These, too, wore a changed aspect—enemy, instead of friend, being written upon
their faces.
President Lincoln spent much of his first Christmas in the White House at a heated Cabinet meeting trying to
deal with what became known as the “Trent Affair.” Union forces had boarded a British ship in international
waters and arrested two Confederate diplomats. Britain demanded the release of the Confederates, along with an
apology. It was a delicate situation that could have resulted in Britain entering the war on the side of the
Confederates, but the Cabinet adjourned with no clear decision. Later that day, President and Mrs. Lincoln
hosted a large Christmas dinner for a large gathering of guests.
For the soldiers in the field, there were festivities, and many enjoyed an abundance of food and drink that would
become scarcer in Christmases to come. Charles N. Scott, a soldier in the fifth New Hampshire Regiment,
described the events planned for the day in a letter to his wife:
We are goin to keep Christmas and we are goin to have a little funn to morrow. We are goin to have some
rassslin and running and jumping and then we are goin to have a greesed pig. There is 4 dollars for the best
rassler and two dollars for the second best and fore dollars for the best jumper and two for the secon best. So I
have told you all our funn. . . .
Despite their efforts to keep some sense of celebration for the day, most
soldiers’ thoughts turned toward home and the loved ones who celebrated
Christmas without them. For these soldiers, many of whom were away
from home for the first time in their lives, it was a time that filled their
hearts with longing.
You have no idea how lonesome I feel this day. It’s the first time in my
life I’m away from loved ones at home. I presume you are in New
Orleans and in a few hours the house will be astir—the children crazy
over their stockings. Were I there, I’d fill them up to the brim with bonbons—I’d make them think for one day that plenty abounded, that no
war existed, and that each was a King or Queen.
James Holloway, 18th Mississippi Regiment, Christmas Day
The primary source for this article was “We Were Marching on Christmas Day”
by Kevin Rawlings, Toomey Press (Baltimore, Maryland), 1996.
“Santa Claus,” Thomas Nast, 1863, Harper’s Weekly.
5
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
While Charles Dickens was writing his novels and stories, a major
shift was taking place in world economics, and it started in Dickens’s
own home country of England. The Industrial Revolution began as a
result of advances in technology that made it much easier to massproduce goods in factories. Before this, most people in England
worked on farms to produce their own food, and made their own
clothing, furniture and other goods. Once factories began producing
these things much faster and cheaper than individuals could, these
craftspeople were forced to work in the factories to make a living.
Since the practice of using machines to mass-produce products was
relatively new, ideas about safety and fairness in the workplace had
not yet been developed. The instances of injury and death in factories
19th -century British textile workers, some of them young children.
were high. Many factory workers worked 10 or 12 hour days for little
money. There were no child labor restrictions, and most families needed their children to work alongside adults just
to make enough money to live on. Charles Dickens himself spent time working in a factory (see page 3).
The Industrial Revolution led to a large gap between the lower classes, who worked in the factories, and the upper
classes; this is something that Dickens explored in many of his works, including A Christmas Carol. Bob Cratchit is
lucky to not have to work in a factory, but his daughter Martha works long hours at a milliner’s (a hat or dress
maker). Bob Cratchit mentions how he is lining up a “situation” for his son Peter. Though he never says what this
might be, this job could very well be in a factory.
The Industrial Revolution was a result of new inventions involving machinery.
How might Dickens’s story be different if it had been set in modern times,
with computers and the Internet as the most recent technology?
COVENT GARDEN
This production of A Christmas Carol has many scenes set in a marketplace similar to the Covent Garden shopping
district in London (see photo of set design, page 9). During Dickens’s time, Covent Garden was mostly a fruit and
vegetable market; it began quite literally as a large garden for a nearby convent in the 1200s. Over the centuries it has
been a place to purchase produce, flowers and crafts, and it is now essentially a shopping mall. The area is also well
known for its opera house and street performers—the popular Punch and Judy puppet show’s first performances in
England occurred there in the 1600s.
Charles Dickens’s son, Charles Jr., describes the market:
No visitor to London should miss paying at least two visits to Coventgarden: one at early morning. Say at 6am—the hour is an untimely one,
but no one will regret the effort that the early rising involves—to see the
vegetable market; the other, later on, to see the fruits and flowers.
Between 5 and 6 o'clock the light traps of the green-grocers of the
metropolis rattle up, and all the streets around the market become
thronged with their carts... By 6 o'clock the market is fairly open, and
the din and bustle are surprising indeed. Gradually the large piles of
vegetables melt away… In winter there are thousands of boxes of
oranges, hundreds of sacks of nuts, boxes of Hamburg grapes and of
French winter pears, barrels of bright American apples… Country
visitors will go away from Covent Garden with the conviction that to
see flowers and fruits in perfection it is necessary to come to London.
Covent Garden, c. 1750. Dr Johnson’s London, 2000.
An excerpt from Dickens's Dictionary of London, by Charles Dickens, Jr., 1879
6
ADAPTATIONS
A Christmas Carol is a very popular story that has been adapted into many different versions. How
many of these have you seen? What does it mean to adapt a story?
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)
Scrooged (1988)
Like many adaptations,
Bob
Cratchit
is
Scrooged uses the ideas
portrayed by Mickey
found in A Christmas Carol
Mouse and Scrooge
without the words or
McDuck is Ebenezer
characters to create a
Scrooge in this Disney
modern-day version. Bill Murray plays a television
animated version. Other
executive who, like Scrooge, is greedy and uncaring.
favorite
Disney
While he is producing a TV version of A Christmas
characters
make
appearances, including Goofy as Jacob Marley and Carol, he is visited by ghosts in much the same way
that Scrooge is in the story.
Jiminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas Past.
A Diva’s Christmas Carol (2000)
Similar to Scrooged, this
version both updates the time
period of the story and
switches the genders of some
of the main characters.
Vanessa Williams stars as
Ebony Scrooge, a pop singer
who goes from being a self-centered diva to a bighearted celebrity.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
This version combines human
actors with Muppets, as Kermit
portrays Bob Cratchit and
award-winning actor Michael
Caine plays Scrooge.
If you were to adapt A Christmas Carol for the year 2010, how might you do it? What kind of a job
would Scrooge have? Where would the Ghost of Christmas Present take Scrooge to show him how
different people celebrate Christmas, rich and poor? What would life be like for the Cratchits?
What other holiday classics are inspired by Charles Dickens?
How so?
It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946
A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965
A Christmas Story, 1983
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! 1966
7
DESIGNING A GHOST
Below are some representations of the character of the Ghost of Christmas Present from page, stage and
screen. How are these characterizations alike? How are they different? Do they look like ghosts to you? At
the bottom left of the page is the costume rendering for Christmas Present from Alejo Vietti, who designed
the costumes for the Ford’s Theatre production of A Christmas Carol. At the bottom right is Dickens’s
original description of the character. Use the space in between to design your own costume for this ghost.
Clockwise from top left:The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992; Mickey’s Christmas Carol, 1983; Scrooge’s Third Visitor, John Leech, 1843; A Christmas Carol, 1997;
Scrooged, 1988
In easy state upon this couch, there
sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see... It
was clothed in one simple green
robe, or mantle, bordered with
white fur. This garment hung so
loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by
any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its
head it wore no other covering than
a holly wreath, set here and there
with shining icicles. Its dark brown
curls were long and free; free as its
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open
hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful
air.
Costume rendering for the Ghost of Christmas Present by Alejo Vietti.
8
ACTIVITIES
The Cratchits celebrate the holidays with a Christmas goose and a pudding. Fred and his wife invite
friends over and play games. The Fezziwigs host a large dance. How do you and your family celebrate
the holidays? What makes your celebrations special?
Ebenezer Scrooge makes a big transformation from the beginning of the play to the end. Imagine that
you are the actor portraying Scrooge. What are some ways that you can show the audience how much
you have changed? Remember that you can use your words, your voice, and your body to
communicate.
At the end of the play, Ebenezer Scrooge makes a lot of
promises to change his ways and become a better person, and
the narrator assures us he kept those promises. How do you
think this will change the lives of the characters? Write a
short play that tells us “what happened next,” whether it takes
place the next day, the next month, or the next year. What is
life like now for the Cratchits? For Fred and his wife? For
Scrooge himself?
The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992.
AT THE SHOW...
When you are at the show, look for these things:
Is there a boundary between the stage and the audience?
Which actors play more than one part?
What are some of the recurring symbols in the play?
What are some of the differences between what Scrooge’s past, present and
future look like?
Set design by Lee Savage
for A Christmas Carol: A
Ghost Story of Christmas.
Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, 1962.
9
VOCABULARY
Here are some words that you will hear during the production of A Christmas Carol at Ford’s
Theatre. Can you identify their definitions before the show? Which ones do you think will be
used to describe Scrooge?
Abundance
Apprenticeship
Benevolence
Cantankerous
Daft
Debtor
Dowerless
Elixir
Farthing
Fetters
Humbug
Ignorance
Morose
Odious
Philanthropy
Poulterer
Reclamation
Seamstress
Shilling
Solicitor
Specter
Stingy
Surplus
Swain
Temerity
Vendor
Want
Workhouses
Yuletide
RESOURCES
Books
Ackroyd, Peter. Introduction to Dickens. Sinclair-Stevens, 1991.
Davis, Paul. The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. Yale University Press, 1991.
Hearn, Michael Patrick. The Annotated Christmas Carol. Norton, 2003.
House, Humphrey. The Dickens World. Oxford University Press, 1941.
Websites
The Dickens Project: http://dickens.ucsc.edu/
The Charles Dickens Page: http://www.charlesdickenspage.com/
The Victorian Web: http://www.victorianweb.org/
Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim by Norman
Rockwell, 1935, The Saturday Evening Post.
10