From Richard Daniels, Director
Monroe Arts Center
The Monroe Arts Center in partnership with the Monroe Theatre Guild produced Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with the concluding performance this past Sunday at the Monroe High School Performing Arts Center. The adaptation of Dickens' story for stage is an original by Monroe's Father Michael Klarer.
Dickens may be English but his principal character in the story is as American an apple pie. The character's overwhelming ambition, his sole endeavor in life, is the acquisition of wealth-and wealth for its own sake. We know from the story it is an empty life.
Klarer's adaptation, and John Baumann's portrayal of the character, works to give us a real person enabling the audience to identify with the character. Indeed, for the play to work, we, the audience, must identify with Scrooge. The ultimate purpose of the play is to for the audience to endure Scrooge's transformation. With Scrooge, we need to come face to face with our own death in order to learn how to better live our lives.
Too often productions of A Christmas Carol do not recognize or do not attempt to achieve this ultimate purpose. We in Monroe should be very proud that our Theatre Guild did.
Monroe Arts Center
The Monroe Arts Center in partnership with the Monroe Theatre Guild produced Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with the concluding performance this past Sunday at the Monroe High School Performing Arts Center. The adaptation of Dickens' story for stage is an original by Monroe's Father Michael Klarer.
Dickens may be English but his principal character in the story is as American an apple pie. The character's overwhelming ambition, his sole endeavor in life, is the acquisition of wealth-and wealth for its own sake. We know from the story it is an empty life.
Klarer's adaptation, and John Baumann's portrayal of the character, works to give us a real person enabling the audience to identify with the character. Indeed, for the play to work, we, the audience, must identify with Scrooge. The ultimate purpose of the play is to for the audience to endure Scrooge's transformation. With Scrooge, we need to come face to face with our own death in order to learn how to better live our lives.
Too often productions of A Christmas Carol do not recognize or do not attempt to achieve this ultimate purpose. We in Monroe should be very proud that our Theatre Guild did.
