After grabbing a quick bite to eat, my mother and I went to see the Christmas Carol at the theatre Friday evening. The play adaptation was marvellous - it was really well done. I had seen the play a few years ago but it bore no resemblance - this year's story adaptation, set, costuming and "special effects" were terrific. Who doesn't love this Charles Dickens classic?
An excerpt from an essay found on the web sums the story up rather nicely - to read the entire article, go to: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,1673562,00.html
"Dickens valued morality, but what he really worshipped was merriment - the buzz of making other people happy, of making a moment glow, of dancing a jig for no particular reason. The greatest tragedy he could imagine was an existence devoid of excitement or playfulness, a biding of time on the way to the grave. Fun, for him, was the only compensation for death, the dismal inevitability of which preyed constantly on his mind. Scrooge's triumph is that he stares his own corpse in the face, and, instead of despairing, defiantly resolves to enjoy the gift of life to the full. He is galvanised by a thousand volts of goodwill. Witnessing his transformation, we realise with a pang of regret that we are hard-hearted too, and that it might take a thousand volts to transform us likewise. We cling, miser-like, to our self-protective anxieties, our emotional meanness, our pointless inhibitions. Perhaps we're all waiting for the Ghosts of our own Past, Present and Future to burst through our defences, seize us by the hand and shock us into joy. Until that day, we revisit A Christmas Carol and watch this alarming miracle happen to someone else."
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