It's the time of year when news of various A Christmas Carol productions around the world floods my inbox. Most of them don't get a mention here because there are just too many, but every once in a while I spot one that I think merits a mention.
Such a one is the one-man version of the show at Los Angeles's Geffen Playhouse. Jefferson Mays is the actor portraying every character -- more than 50 -- in the story, and there are few actors more fitted to the task. Mays has made a specialty of this kind of show, playing more than 40 characters in I Am My Own Wife, and later playing nine roles in A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (in which I was fortunate enough to see him). In short, as the Los Angeles Times puts it, he "is a performer who can unleash multitudes," and moreover, "is an ideal conduit for Dickens’ authorial voice . . . [who] relishes the sly observational humor as well as the horror." (Mays and his wife, Susan Lyons, also helped to adapt the story. In this interview he speaks of his history with A Christmas Carol, as well as his recently discovered love for The Pickwick Papers.)
Those of you who can make it to the Geffen during this run (which ends December 9) will most likely find it worth your while!
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