BU Dickens Scholar Serves as Dramaturg for New Production of A Christmas Carol
Natalie McKnight, dean of the College of General Studies, on Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of the famous novella and the story’s enduring appeal
Award-winning actor Will Lyman (CFA’71) (above) stars as Ebenezer Scrooge in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s new production of A Christmas Carol, based on the Charles Dickens novel, first published in 1843. Photos courtesy of Matt McKee Photography
BU Dickens Scholar Serves as Dramaturg for New Production of A Christmas Carol
Natalie McKnight, dean of the College of General Studies, on Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of the famous novella and the story’s enduring appeal
From the moment it was first published in 1843, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has enchanted readers around the globe. They are drawn to the novella’s redemptive story of the elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge, whose life is transformed after a visit by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, as well as the story’s searing indictment of child poverty, as seen through the eyes of the Cratchit family, especially the youngest child, Tiny Tim.
Just weeks after its publication, A Christmas Carol had been adapted for the stage. Within months, there were more than half a dozen different theatrical productions playing in London alone. Almost 200 years later, new productions keep surfacing. Here in Boston, a new stage production by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) has just opened at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, starring a noted Boston University alum, the actor Will Lyman (CFA’71), as Scrooge. The adaptation is by Steve Wargo and directed by CSC cofounder Steven Maler. And serving as dramaturg, or literary editor, for the production is Natalie McKnight, who, in addition to her role as dean of BU’s College of General Studies, is a noted Dickens scholar and the editor of Dickens Studies Annual.
The show marks a first for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, best known for its acclaimed free Shakespeare productions staged on the Boston Common each summer. The hope is that its production of A Christmas Carol becomes an annual holiday tradition in Boston.
BU Today spoke with McKnight about her work on the production, what Dickens himself might have made of it, and why his story resonates with readers more than 180 years after it was first published.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q&A
with Natalie McKnight
BU Today: How did you come to be involved in the production?
McKnight: I’m on the advisory board of CSC and they knew when they asked me to join that I was a Dickens scholar.
BU Today: What has your role as dramaturg involved?
McKnight: It actually began several years ago when we started contemplating doing a production of A Christmas Carol. I read several possible theatrical versions and discussed them with Steve Maler, the artistic director and cofounder of CSC, along with other CSC leaders. During the summer, Steve started asking me questions about the text, the times, the ages of the characters, etc., as he started the casting process. I put together some contextual notes for the cast and crew that are part of the reference materials that are included in the daily calls and I regularly field questions from the assistant director about textual matters and historical contexts.
BU Today: What are some of the questions you’ve been asked?
McKnight: What are the ages of the Cratchit children? At what age might they go to work? How well would they be able to read? (There’s a scene where one of the boys reads from the Bible.) Where would the pudding be made? What did Tiny Tim die of? Would the laundress and the charwoman who sell off Scrooge’s clothes and bed curtains live in the same house as him?
BU Today: Given how many theatrical productions of A Christmas Carol are produced each holiday season, what makes this one special?
McKnight: It has traditional carols woven throughout, and they are gorgeous—ebullient, haunting, and deeply moving. I think Dickens would love it (he loved musicals). Plus, he would love that Commonwealth Shakespeare Company is producing it—he was a big fan of Shakespeare, and CSC’s mission to offer free Shakespeare on the Common each summer would resonate deeply with Dickens’ commitment to making art accessible to all. Steve Wargo’s adaptation appeals to me because it sticks closely to Dickens’ original language and incorporates those beautiful traditional carols throughout.
BU Today: A Christmas Carol remains Dickens’ best known work. What accounts for its continued popularity?
McKnight: I think many people feel overwhelmed during the holiday season, bombarded with work, requests for money, and the relentless insistence that this is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s easy to find oneself becoming a bit Scrooge-ish. And so the story’s message of renewal, its belief that it’s never too late to redeem oneself and commit to life anew, is perennially appealing. I also think that it’s very easy to get cut off from one’s own past, and in doing so, we lose touch with our own humanity. Scrooge’s visits to his past selves help him come back to life and that resonates with readers and audiences, even when they may not recognize how much the story applies to them, too.
Also, A Christmas Carol may be Dickens’ most perfect work—certainly some esteemed Dickens scholars have thought so. It is tightly structured in five “staves” much like traditional five-act plays. It has a classic dramatic arc. Additionally, it beautifully combines humor and pathos along with rich descriptive scenes that only Dickens could do.
BU Today: The novel’s publication coincided with the Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday, yes?
Traditional Christmas practices had been waning for decades, something Washington Irving, one of Dickens’ favorite authors, wrote about, too. Puritans and evangelicals had looked askance at Christmas revelries that seemed too hedonistic and too much in alignment with pagan winter solstice celebrations. In some areas (Scotland, for instance), Christmas was no longer celebrated much at all. Certainly, the writings of Irving and Dickens helped to revive the holiday. Dickens went on to write four more Christmas books and numerous Christmas stories and published Christmas issues of his magazines Household Words and All the Year Round. Dickens didn’t just revive Christmas traditions; he became one. And he still is.
BU Today: How much of A Christmas Carol is autobiographical?
McKnight: In addition to the influence of his visits to factories and his reading of government reports on child labor, the novella is also influenced by Dickens’ own experience of having been forced to work in a blacking factory when he was 12 and his father having been imprisoned for debt. In addition, as an adult, he was regularly hounded for money by his parents, siblings, and the demands of his own large family (he ultimately had 10 children), and also by countless charitable organizations and strangers seeking his support. When Scrooge sharply cuts off the philanthropists who ask him for a donation toward the beginning of A Christmas Carol, Dickens was probably channeling some of his own frustrations and exasperation.
BU Today: You discovered that textile mills in Lowell, Mass., are also thought to have served as inspiration for Dickens in the writing of the novel.
McKnight: I coauthored an article with Chelsea Bray (CGS’11, CAS’13), a former student of mine, published in Dickens and Massachusetts: The Lasting Legacy of the Commonwealth Visits, about the influence of the Lowell mill women on the Carol. Their publication, The Lowell Offering, which Dickens read after his visit to Lowell in 1842, ended up shaping some of the plot, themes, characters, and even phrases in the Carol. (Editor’s note: you can read more about McKnight and Bray’s research here.)
BU Today: The novel was first adapted for the stage almost immediately after it was published. There have also been more than 100 film and television adaptations. Do you have a favorite?
McKnight: It was typical for Dickens’ fiction to make it to the stage even before the monthly or weekly editions of the novel were released. That didn’t stop theatrical producers! But the Carol has fared remarkably well as a work of drama. It became one of his favorite readings to do dramatically. He performed it here in Boston at the Tremont Temple in December 1867 at the beginning of his reading tour of the United States (which was wildly popular). Two of my favorite film/TV versions are the animated Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962) and the 1984 TV production with George C. Scott playing Scrooge. But there aren’t many that I don’t like.
BU Today: If Charles Dickens were alive today, what kind of Christmas story do you think he’d write?
McKnight: Impossible to know, of course, but I think he might write something similar, but perhaps even more cutting, about the growing divide between the rich and the poor, and the callousness that comes from a culture that encourages greed.
The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St., Boston, from December 8 to 22. Balcony and mezzanine tickets start at $23.75 and orchestra tickets start at $78.75, while tickets last. Premium seating starts at $103.75. All performances will be open-captioned, with audio description on December 15 at 2 pm and December 21 at 2 pm. ASL interpretation is provided for the performances on those dates as well. Purchase tickets here.
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