The Holidays Begin

I'm pleased to announce that my short play Burns Night has passed into the semifinalist round of the Holiday Playwright Contest held by Kinsman Quarterly.

The play premiered in 2019 at the Secret Theatre in Queens, which is now one of many companies doing productions of A Christmas Carol throughout the five boroughs of New York and beyond.

While I don't know that I'll be able to get out to see that production before it closes on December 22nd, I plan on going to see another production closer to home. On December 3rd and 4th, Sean Coffey will be performing his one-person adaptation of Charles Dickens's story at the historic Van Cortlandt House Museum in the Bronx.

John Kevin Jones will be performing his own one-person version of the tale in Manhattan at the Merchant’s House Museum in Manhattan through December 29th. If you're in the mood for a larger production, head over to Staten Island, where Sundog Theatre is producing a large-cast musical version of the tale on December 7th, adapted by Cash Tilton, with original songs by Susan Mondzak.

Most exciting to me, though, is a puppet version of A Christmas Carol performed by Drama of Works on December 19th at Rubulad in Brooklyn. Drama of Works founder Gretchen Van Lente is sponsoring a “XMAS CAROL” puppet slam, breaking up Dickens’s story into six parts, each performed by a different puppetry troupe. Gretchen designed the puppets for my own adaptation of the story in 2007, so I'm expecting great things.

Across the river, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is producing a stage version of A Christmas Carol in Madison, adapted by Neil Bartlett, which plays until December 29th. Yes, that's a lot of Carols! It so happens, I am regarded as enough of an expert on these things that I will be co-hosting the last episode of the Rosenbach Library's "Monsters and Ghosts" online program on December 16th, discussing the legacy of a Dickensian Christmas.

So however you celebrate this month, I wish you a very merry holiday season!

Punch Drunk

This past weekend, people all over the world celebrated the 208th birthday of Charles Dickens. Here in the city, the Friends of Dickens New York held its annual Birthday Luncheon, inviting two professional puppeteers to give a presentation on the history of Punch and Judy.

Each year, the Friends of Dickens chooses a different novel to study, and this year we are reading The Old Curiosity Shop. The book tells the story of Little Nell and her wanderings through the countryside with her grandfather. At one point, they come upon two showmen who display a Punch and Judy show. Though the novel makes numerous allusions to the story of Punch, it never comes out and tells what that story is, since its original audience was already familiar with it and didn't need to be told.

In the 21st century, however, such puppet shows are far less familiar, so we were happy to welcome Gretchen Van Lente and Brendan T. Schweda to tell us a bit more about the Punch tradition. Gretchen is the Artistic Director of the puppetry company Drama of Works and wrote and starred in The Sid & Nancy Punch & Judy Show, which combines the story of Punch and Judy with that of the tragic tale of punk rocker Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. I first met her, though, when she designed the puppets for an adaptation I wrote of A Christmas Carol.

I had never met Brendan before, but he is a producer, performer, and author who started the Puppets Come Home! series to celebrate the history of puppetry in Coney Island and to welcome in the contemporary puppet community. In addition to being a Punch and Judy expert, he produces and hosts puppet shows with IBEX Puppetry and Coney Island USA. On Saturday, though, Brendan didn't just talk about puppetry, he briefly became a puppet, donning a giant Punch suit, complete with rubber mask!

The pair began by telling about the Punch character's origins in commedia dell'arte, the first recorded appearance of a Punch marionette in Covent Garden in the 17th century, and the famous engravings by George Cruikshank of hand puppets from a Punch and Judy show. Later, the puppet shows became beloved attractions at seaside resorts. Gretchen and Brendan showed slides of people watching these shows, including one slide of a Punch and Judy play at Coney Island at the beginning of the 20th century. We could almost smell the salt in the air!

Because Punch and Judy shows are a slapstick comedy (sometimes employing a literal slapstick wielded by Punch) they are easily adapted for a variety of purposes. Gretchen's The Sid & Nancy Punch & Judy Show is best seen live, but if you want to get a taste of it, there is video available. Instead of throwing the baby out the window, Punch/Sid throws the Sex Pistols out the window. Judy/Nancy beats him with a giant heroine needle, and he beats her back with his bass guitar. The aesthetic is pure punk rock.

A more traditional Punch and Judy show can be seen here. It still doesn't show us exactly what such a performance would have been like in Dickens's day, but it is a start. In any case, I was much obliged to Gretchen and Brendan for transporting us, at least for a little bit, back to an earlier era.

A Christmas Carol

It's Christmas Eve, and my mind goes back to the adaptation I wrote of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The play was originally commissioned by the Epiphany Theater Company and performed in Saratoga Springs, New York in 2007.

Jose Zayas directed that production, which had just two actors, Hugh Sinclair as Ebenezer Scrooge and George Deihl, Jr., who played Charles Dickens and all of the other characters. Of course, they were aided by puppets by Gretchen Van Lente, costumes by Carla Bellisio, lights by Evan Purcell, a set by Mark Erbaugh, and a sound design by Amy Altadonna.

Here now is A Christmas Carol in pictures:

Dickens begins the narration: "Marley was dead, to begin with..."

Old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house.

He kept an eye on his clerk, Bob Cratchit.

But that night, Scrooge saw in the knocker--not a knocker, but Marley's face.

For that night, Scrooge would receive a visit from...

MARLEY'S GHOST!

Scrooge would be haunted by three spirits...

The first was the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Scrooge saw his sister Fan visit him at school...

...and he saw Belle! The woman he once loved.

Finding himself in bed, Scrooge was ready for anything between a baby and a rhinoceros. But he was not ready for...

...the Ghost of Christmas Present!

Scrooge saw his nephew Fred's lovely wife...

...and Tiny Tim.

"Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any specter I have seen."

"Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man I suppose?"

Scrooge asks to see any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death. The Spirit shows him a debtor who rejoices.

"Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

Scrooge buys a turkey for the Cratchits...

...and becomes a changed man.

Merry Christmas, everyone! And as Tiny Tim observed, "God Bless Us, Every One!