And the performance itself was wonderful. The RNZB is filled with extremely talented dancers, but everything – the lighting, costumes, music – was brilliant, all the more so because you could sense the crew's joy at having a proper venue to work in once again.
A Christmas Carol is indisputably the most famous fictional Christmas story of them all, adapted and updated dozens of times. Its potency is based in its simplicity: a stingy miser learns the error of his ways when confronted by three spirits who show him glimpses of past, present and future. All the best stories have very simple hearts, and the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge is as straightforward a redemption tale as they come.
What's more, the story is very short. This ballet was divided by two intervals and the whole thing just flew by, even with a significant amount of what can best be described as padding (though without the negative connotations). On the way home from work, Bob Cratchit stops to dance with a few locals in a scene that had no real purpose beyond giving the dancers a chance to play around on a makeshift slide.
The highlight of the production was the depiction of the three spirits: Past as a white-clad girl (just eerie enough to come across as ethereal rather than angelic), Present as a flamboyant, glitter-throwing cross between Rum Tum Tugger from Cats and Anne Rice's Lestat, and Yet To Come as a truly terrifying spectre of death. I was expecting the skull-face, but not the large ragged wings, the result of which left me shocked that no child in the audience started crying.
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| I took this from the programme. Just imagine it dancing around the stage. |
The choreography for the spirits was a little strange, for in order to convey otherworldliness they each frequently favoured a movement that looked a little like the "fake drowning" manoeuvre (you know, when a dancer holds their nose and wriggles down to the floor – only in this case, without the nose-holding) or a child waving their arms and swaying back and forth like a ghost. You can see Past doing it in the trailer below at 0.16:
(It's very brief, but there was a lot of it going on).
It was an interesting technique, one that I wasn't entirely sold on, but they were otherwise the highpoint of the show. In particular, Past's dramatic appearance in Scrooge's window earned an audible "ooh" from the audience.
There were lots of little details that I appreciated: the ringing of the single bell that starts the haunting, the clinking of chains as Marley approaches, the nice bit of prop-work as Scrooge's tombstone emerges from his bed during the climactic scene. They were all small but evocative bits featured in the novel, and including them here made it feel like a really thoughtful adaptation.
Other highlights involved the clumsy antics of the Fezziwigs as they tried to keep up with the younger members of their dance party (it must be so difficult for a dancer to convey clumsiness when you've been trained in the art of gracefulness), and Tiny Tim who sings How Far Is It To Bethlehem? without being nauseating (Dickens was notorious for his love of the Littlest Cancer Patient).
The writhing agony of the restless spirits looked like something out of a zombie uprising/rave (again, I'm surprised there was no crying children in the audience) and a lovely sequence in which Scrooge tries to implore his younger self to reconcile with his fiancée, only for the opportunity to pass him by.
So it was a great night out. One of my favourite landmark buildings is back, the Christmas spirit is welling up (next I take my nephew to the Santa Parade) and I got to revisit an old Christmas favourite.
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| The famous domed roof |
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| The inevitable red curtains |
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| My terrible attempt at a selfie on the main staircase |
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