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Going to St. Ives

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Guys and Dolls

His Girl Friday

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peerless

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Little Shop at Colonial

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Eric Hill's Macbeth

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Mary and Edith

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there is a happiness. . .

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Miss Bennet: Xmas at Pemb

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Ring of Fire

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Paris Time

She Loves Me in Albany

Sex With Strangers

CapRep Mamma Mia!

Assisted Loving

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Mary's Wedding

Disgraced

Bar Mitzvah Boy

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Almost, Maine

Animals Out of Paper

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Annapurna

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blink

Body Awareness

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Every Brilliant Thing

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I and You

An Iliad

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Memory House

The Mountaintop

My Jane

A Number

Oh God

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Copake Theatre Company

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I Do! I Do!

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All in the Timing

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Barefoot in the Park

Baskerville

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Deathtrap

Dear Elizabeth

Dial "M" For Murder

Downstairs

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Good People

The Hollow

I Hate Hamlet

Intimate Apparel

June Moon

Lady Day at Emerson's Bar

Legend of Georgia McBride

Marry Me a Little

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Murder on the Nile

Noises Off

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Outside Mullingar

Red

St. Nicholas

S Holmes & the Jersey Lil

Superior Donuts

Table Manners

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The Novelist

The Pavilion

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A Year with Frog and Toad

Ghent Playhouse 2018/2019

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Elves and Shoemaker

The Father

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Ali Baba...4 Tea Thieves

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Belles

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Clue: The Musical

Complete Wm Shakespeare

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Dancing at Lughnasa

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Grapes of Wrath

Greater Tuna

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Heroes in Ghent

House of Dwarfs

The Imaginary Invalid

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jerry's Girls

Lettice and Lovage

Enchanted April

The Little Mermaid. . .

Ghent "Little Shop"

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Mothers and Sons

Mrs. Farnsworth

My Cousin Rachel

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Once Upon a Mattress

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6 Women...

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The 25th Annual Putnam...

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You're a Good Man, Charli

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menagerie

Book Club Play

HH - Crucible

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Tartuffe

Shakespeare's King Lear

Parellel Lives

Ondine

Hubbard Shirley Valentine

Shakespeare's Macbeth

The Drawer Boy

You Can't Take It With Yo

Literature

An Unlikely Hero

Antibes

B ob Dylan

Christmasville

A Lesser Saint

Upstreet, #1

Living Room Theatre

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MacHaydn Theater-2018

Annie at the Mac

Mac's Wedding Singer

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Machaydn Mamma Mia

Mac-Haydn Cabaret

Funny Girl

Damn Yankees 2018

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Mac-Haydn's Addams Family

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Annie

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Beauty and the Beast

Best Little Whorehouse...

Brigadoon

Bye Bye Birdie

Carousel at the Mac

Chicago

Chicago (2016)

Chorus Line

Crazy For You

Damn Yankees

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Dreamcoat

Drowsy Chaperone in Chath

Fair Lady

Mac Fantasticks

Fiddler in Chatham

forty-second Street

Machaydn's The Full Monty

Guys and Dolls in Chatham

Gypsy

Hairspray

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Hello, Dolly!

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High Society

Into the Woods

Joseph. . .Dreamcoat

Jekyll and Hyde

The King and I

Kiss Me, Kate

La Cage aux Folles

Legally Blonde

Les Miz

Love a Piano

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Meet Me in St. Lou

The Music Man

Nice Work If You Can Get

9 to 5

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Oliver!

Phantom

The Producers

R.D. Housewives of C.C.

Rent in Chatham

Saturday Night Fever

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Singin' In The Rain

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10 mini trios

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Blood Sky

Fahrenheit 451

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Northern Stage

Living Together

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Romeo & Juliet

And Then There Were None

King Island Christmas

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Of Mice and Men

Twelve Angry Jurors

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1776

Macbeth

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Ordeal By Innocence

Reunion

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"Almost, Maine" in VT

Around the World in. . .

Beauty Queen of Leenane

Big River

Black Comedy

Broadway Bound

Cabaret

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The City of Conversation

A Comedy of Tenors in VT

ConsulTrampAmerica'sSweet

Doubt in Vermont

4000 Miles

Fox on the Fairway

The Grass is Greener

Last Days of Mickey & Jea

Oldcastle Lion-Winter

Mauritius at Oldcastle

Moonlight & Magnolias

My Fair Lady

Night and Her Stars

Northern Boulevard

One Two Three

Other People's Money

Rembrandt's Gift

The Ride Down Mount Morgn

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A Song For My Father

Strange Disappearance of

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Third

39 Steps

Time Stands Still

Proctors Schenectady

A Bronx Tale

Young Dr. Jekyll

On Your Feet

King and I

The Humans

Proctors Les Miserables

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Finding Neverland

Fun Home

The Color Purple

Wicked

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Sand Lake Center for Arts

Men On Boats

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Sand Lake Annie

In the Heat of the Night

Schenectady Civic Players

The School for Lies

Other Desert Cities

An Inspector Calls

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S&COMothers&Sons

Heisenberg

As You Like It18

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Love's Labors Lost

Macbeth2018

Morning After Grace

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Perfect Pair of Wharton

Tempest in the Garden

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The Taming

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Mother of the Maid

The Unexpected Man

The Comedy of Errors

Henry V

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Private Eyes

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Henry IV, Parts One &Two

6-Actor Romeo and Juliet

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Julius Caesar in Lenox

A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Shakespeare's Will

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Private Lives

It's a Wonderful Life

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Kaufman's Barber Shop

Beauty Queen/Leenane

Mother Courage...

Richard II

Love's Labour's Lost

Heroes

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The Liar

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Satchmo at the Waldorf

The Tempest

Parasite Drag

King Lear

Tale of Allergist's Wife

Cassandra Speaks

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The Learned Ladies

Cymbeline

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War of the Worlds

Red Hot Patriot

Broadway in the Berkshire

Baskervilles (Revisited)

Romeo and Juliet, 2011

The Hollow Crown

As You Like It

The Memory of Water

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All's Well That Ends Well

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The Canterville Ghost

Cindy Bella

Real Inspector Hound

Dreamer Examines Pillow

Goatwoman of Corvis Count

Golda's Balcony

Hound of Baskervilles

Irma Vep, The Mystery of

Julius Caesar

The Ladies Man

Liaisons Dangereuses

Mengelberg and Mahler

Othello

Pinter's Mirror

Richard III

Romeo and Juliet

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Sea Marks

Shirley Valentine

The Taster

Twelfth Night

White People

The Winter's Tale

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Always. . .Patsy Cline

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Big River in Sharon

Far Away

Georgie

Gypsy in Sharon

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Little Shop of Horrors

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Terms of Endearment

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Grant and Twain

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Masked Man

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Die Fledermaus

Grinder's Stand

Babylon Revisited

John

Dracula's Grandmother

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It Shoulda Been You

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Kill Me Now

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Four Dogs and a Bone

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Trial of F.D.R.

Autres Temp. . .

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On The Verge

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Starcrossed

"Earnest" in Albany

Paris, 1890--Unlaced

BCC's A Christmas Carol

Sister's Christmas Catech

The Pajame Game

Her Name is Vincent

Property Known as Garland

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I Know I Came...Something

Doubt, a Parable

Voices' A Christmas Carol

Dickens A Christmas Carol

Marie Galante

Machinal

Capitol Steps

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Rabbit Hole

Taming of The Shrew

Mystery of Irma Vep

I Love a Piano

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The Mikado

Saturday Night Liv

A Chorus Line

BCC - Christmas Carol

Morgan O-Yuki

Rent

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Tomorrow in the Battle

Stockholm

Looped

Play by Play Unchained

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The Divine Sister

Forbidden Broadway

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The Decorator

TBSpelling Bee

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Pump Boys at the Barn

The Mousetrap 2018

The Nerd

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A. Christie's The Hollow

The Addams Family

Agatha Christie's. .None

Altar Boyz

The Andrews Brothers

Better Late

Black Coffee

Boeing-Boeing

The Cocktail Hour

A Comedy of Tenors

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Don't Dress for Dinner

Don't Talk to the Actors

The Drowsy Chaperone

Evita

Forever Plaid

Forever Plaid-2016

The Full Monty

Funny Thing Happened

God of Carnage

Godspell-2012

Grease

Great American Trailer...

Gutenberg! The Musical

Guys and Dolls TB

Half and Half

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadda

Housewives of Columbia

How the Other Half Loves

TBarn's I Love a Piano

I Love You....Now Change

It Had To Be You

John & Jen

Leading Ladies

Lies & Legends

The Little Dog Laughed

Lucky Me

Moonlight and Magnolias

Five Course Love

Moon Over Buffalo

The Mousetrap

Murder at Howard Johnson

A Murder is Announced

The Musical of Musicals

Nunsense at TB

Red, White and Tuna

Romance, Romance

Same Time, etc.

Fantasticks at the Barn

Spider's Web

Christie's Spider's Web

Stones In His Pockets

The 39 Steps

They're Playing Our Song

Towards Zero

The Unexpected Guest

Veronica's Room

Visiting Mr. Green

The Wedding Singer

You Should Be So Lucky

Young Frankenstein

Zanna Don't!

Town Players--Pittsfield

New and Used

Prodigal Cow

The Rocky Horror Show

Love, Loss & What I Wore

The Whale

Win/Lose/Draw

The Shape of Things

Five Women..Same Dress

Skin Deep

Stop Kiss

Life Is Short

Visual Arts

Walking the dog 2018

WTG Richard II

WALKING THE DOG: ARCHIVED

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Bon Appetit!

Cyrano

daemons

Eurydice

The Gospel of John

i take your hand in mine

Lost Frontier of America

Our Town

The Owl and the Pussycat

Painting Churches

The Umbilical Point

Under Milk Wood

Vritue, Desire, etc.

Walking the dog's HAMLET

Who Am I This Time?

WAM Theatre Company

Ann

The Last Wife

emelieredux

The Bakelite Masterpiece

Special

Holy Laughter

In Darfur

Emilie

The Old Mezzo

Attic, Pearls & 3 Fine Gi

Melancholy Play

Weston Playhouse -2018

Two Trains Running

Million $$ Quartet

Weston Doll's House 2

West Side Weston

Fun Home in Weston

Weston's Our Town

Weston Playhouse Archived

Weston's All My Sons

Analog and Vinyl

Baskervilles in Vermont

Buyer & Cellar

Weston's Chorus Line

Educating Rita

Ella

42nd Street

A Funny Thing...Forum

Fully Committed

Weston's Guys & Dolls

The Light in the Piazza

Les Miserables

Long Day's Journey Into N

Mamma Mia

Weston's La Mancha

Murder For Two

Music Man

Next to Normal

No Child. . .

Once

Weston's Other Place

Peter and the Starcatcher

Pregnancy Pact

Pump Boys and Dinettes

A Raisin in the Sun

Rent - Weston

Round & Round the Garden

Souvenir

Tenderly

25th Spelling Bee

Weston's Uncle Vanya

V&S&M&Spike

Williamstown Theatre 2018

Dangerous House

The Member of the Wedding

Seared

Lempicka

Artney Jackson

The Sound Inside

The Closet

WTF ARCHIVED REVIEWS

5x10

A Doll's House

A Month in the Country

Actually

After the Revolution

An American Daughter

American Hero

And No More Shall We Part

Animal Crackers

The Atheist

Beyond Therapy

The Blue Deep

Broke-Ology

Caroline in Jersey

The Chinese Room

Children

The Clean House

Cost of Living

David Storey's "Home"

The Elephant Man

Far From Heaven

Fifth of July

A Flea in Her Ear

Fool For Love

Funny Thing/Forum

Funny Thing II

A Great Wilderness

Hapgood

Importance of/Earnest

An Intervention

It's Jewdy's Show

Johnny Baseball

WTF's June Moon

Kinship

Knickerbocker

The Last Goodbye

Legacy

A Legendary Romance

Living On Love

The Model American

Moon for the Misbegotten

Moscow, Moscow, . . .

Off the Main Road

The Old Man&The Old Moon

One Slight Hitch

Paradise Blue

Pygmalion

Quartermaine's Terms

Romance Novels for Dummie

The Roommate

The Rose Tattoo

Samuel J. and K.

She Loves Me

She Stoops To Conquer

Six Degrees of Separation

Streetcar Named Desire

Ten Cents a Dance

Three Hotels

Three Sisters

The Torch-Bearers

True West

Unknown Soldier

The Visit

What is..Cause of Thunder

Where Storms are Born

WTF's Our Town

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Directed by Ted Pugh.

Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman


David Anderson; photo: Dan Region
Jonathan Talbott & Anderson; photo: Dan Region

"Raising a ghost of an idea."

          Novelist Charles Dickens often toured and read aloud from his works. "A Christmas Carol" is one of those  that lends itself to a single talented voice. Dickens, himself a proud actor on the London stage, undoubtedly did one of hell of a good job portraying the many characters in his famous ghostly saga of Ebenezer Scrooge and the London of the early 19th century.

          From our earliest years we are accustomed to someone, mother, nanny, baby-sitter, grandparent, teacher and even good old Dad, reading aloud to us in bed. Combine the idea of Dickens, alive and well, touring through Chatham or Great Barrington at this time of year and the fun of listening to Dad, mom, or whoever, just reading an old favorite for us and you have the gist of the Walking the Dog Theater production of A Christmas Carol. Providing, that is, that you have a talented musician handy behind the screen or curtain to play appropriately ominous and magical music to bridge scenes, replace scenes and simply underscore the emotional content of the story.

          David Anderson is the Dickens of the title, and he does a dickens of a good job playing all the major, and minor, roles. In fifty-one minutes he performs the down-sized script version of the novella. It is always interesting to me to see and hear the selections and to note the things that are missing in any staged version of this piece. I have written and directed five different tellings and there are favorite lines that I look forward to hearing and many others that I hope not to hear. WTD Theater’s version is an amalgam of many of the things I like and some of the things I never anticipate, and it is done so well that I don’t even regret the pieces that I look forward to that were skipped over.

          Seeing this one-man rendition the same weekend as the highly populated Berkshire Theatre Festival version points up some intriguing differences in interpretation, playing and even performance preferences. On the Unicorn stage the coal burner and the scuttle are together in a room that Bob Cratchit (that name is mis-spelled in the BTF programs) but WTD’s recital of the book indicates quite clearly that the coal and the scuttle are kept sequestered in Scrooge’s office, out of the Clerk’s reach. The WTD edition has no presentation of the orphaned children of mankind "Ignorance" and "Want" - a graphic depiction of the state of the world in Dickens’ time and our own that makes a difference in our perception of the moral of the tale - while the BTF’s children are real and have a lean and hungry look about them.

          Each version makes it choices. Anderson chooses not to attempt accents and that works well for his presentation in an up-close and personal presentation in a room, sparsely decorated where the three-rows of seats put everyone within his reach. He doesn’t need the accents to make the characters real, for he has a real ability with presentation and his conversations, reduced to two characters at a time and not three or more, flow with ease.

          Pugh has given him three principal playing areas and uses them well. His stage is really a podium here and there is that sense of a man in a multi-use room doing his best to transport his listeners to other times and many places. I regret the loss of Fan. Her short scene is always so compelling for me. I missed seeing Belle when she is flirtatious, but felt that her confrontation with her fiancé Ebenezer was well wrought. It is hard to play the role of a spirit who never speaks but evokes some horror through is physical appearance when there are no costumes to be had and only a gesture or two to use, but Anderson makes the most of those gestures under Pugh’s excellent guidance.

          Jonathan Talbott provides the music, the "soundscape" and his presence as a party fiddler. He does it all so well that he helps to close the seams that threaten to erupt in this one-man farrago, this one-man medley of a version of the story. Anderson has the charm to pull off the character and the character he portrays has the talent to tell the story. He’s better than just Dad or Mom or Betty the crazed baby-sitter. Here is an actor’s actor acting.

◊12/14/08◊

 


Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol plays at Space 360, located at 360 Warren Street in Hudson, NY through December 21 and December 22 and 23 Upstairs at the Triplex in Great Barrington. Tickets are $10-$15. For full schedules, information and availability call Walking the Dog Theater at 518-755-1716 or go to their website at www.wtdtheater.org.


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