2022-12-12
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Kevin Tracy is not a member of the Family Christian Center church, nor is any member of his family. However, Kevin Tracy is a devout Christian. He is also an enormous fan of Charles Dickens' 1943 short novella A Christmas Carol and almost all adaptations of it.
Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical Review
BACKGROUND: How I Ended Up at Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical
My uncle was planning to take four of his younger grandkids to see Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical at the Family Christian Center with my mom. However, hearing that the show may be a bit too intense for the youngest (a three-year-old), they decided not to go. This left six tickets for third row seats unused. My mom offered the tickets to my fiancée Katie and myself; which we gleefully accepted since Joe Biden's inflation has made date nights financially difficult for us.
We ultimately decided to give two of the remaining tickets to Katie's parents; who also needed a date night and equally loved theater as much as Katie and myself.
So, we showed up about an hour before the show started, exited our cars in a parking lot that smelled like a ton of people were smoking weed before the show, and walked into the Family Christian Center in Munster, Indiana to see Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical. To our delight, they offered extremely discounted Starbucks coffee ($13.60 for four drinks) that we could bring into the theater. We were now ready and caffeinated for whatever would come.
The NO SPOILERS Review of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical
Production Value Was Shockingly Good... with one major failure.
We went in expecting nothing more than a community theater production. After all, the entire cast and crew behind the scenes were volunteers. In this regard, the cast and (most of the) crew of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical blew away our expectations! The Family Christian Center is rigged with some incredible equipment that enabled a high quality production with all the bells and whistles, including some I've only seen in large arenas and downtown theaters in Chicago, New York, and Sacramento. In fact, they also may have had an immersive feature I've only seen in some specialty 4-D movie theaters: reactive air conditioning. This wasn't advertised in anything I read about the Family Christian Center's production, but it seemed like someone turned the air conditioning on whenever the setting changed from indoors to outdoors. I made the mistake of wearing a short sleeve shirt and first noticed it because I had goosebumps the size of welts growing on my arm at one point. It's possible this wasn't actually a feature, but a happy-little accident, as most outdoor scenes involved horses and if the horses were being brought inside for their scenes, the doors to the Family Christian Center would have to be open for a while; which would naturally create a frigid draft. Either way, the immersive nature of the cold air was appreciated.
My only critique of the production value for Saturday's Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical was the sound production. I can only guess that something horrible must have happened right before the show that either broke a number of the cast microphones, some other piece of the sound equipment must have failed, or the guy who actually knew how everything was supposed to work wasn't able to show up. Either way, the end result was actresses (more than the actors) screaming their lines hoping in vain to be heard while those with working microphones had their volume turned up ridiculously high that peaking was a pretty consistent problem through most of the dialog portions of the production. I was thankful for the third row seats, as people in the back and balconies probably couldn't hear a third of the dialog. I'm not an expert on the technical side of things, but I also had a very difficult time telling who on stage was the one talking when the microphones were working. All of the speakers were firing on full blast all of the time with no attempt at sound direction. Adding to the problems, it sounded like there was some microphone randomly picking up static coming over the speakers. Katie thought this might have been a fire alarm caused by the excessive smoke and indoor fireworks; which might have been the case, but seems odd given how often they use the Family Christian Center for events that use pyrotechnics and fireworks.
Was Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical Family Friendly?
When my uncle decided not to see Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical because it might be too frightening for his youngest granddaughter, I thought he was crazy. It was, after all, a Christian production of a Christmas Carol hosted in a church, performed by Christian volunteers, and was clearly advertised as family friendly Christmas fun complete with live horses (a favorite of young children across the country). Surely he was over-reacting. Sure, the Ghost of Christmas Future is universally scary (Scrooged being my pick for most horrifying), but Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical can't be THAT bad.
My uncle was right. There were several minutes of straight flashing red lights, maniacal laughter from dozens of the cast, strobe lights, blasts of fire, and an extremely creepy ghost of Jacob Marley making it even more unnerving. As adults, Katie and I thought it went on too long and the scene lost a lot of its impact. However, to a young child, the length of that spot could result in some nightmares and an inexplicable fear of horses or ghosts later in life.
You know your kid best. I would generally avoid taking kids under eight to see Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical if you plan to stay for the entire show.
Reviewing the Overall Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical Content
Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical opens with some extremely confusing plot holes. I'll go into these in more detail in the spoilers section. I leaned over to Katie several times to ask if I was really understanding things correctly because what was happening on stage made absolutely no sense. Although Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical never actually explains any of these problems, they don't really impact the remainder of the story (at least not in negative ways).
Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical should be regarded as a Comedy Musical. Similar to the 2009 CGI version of A Christmas Carol film featuring Jim Carrey as Scrooge, Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical features Ebenezer Scrooge as the primary source of comedy. However, while Jim Carrey's rendition of Scrooge is the only version of the character I truly disliked (this is the only Christmas Carol film I dislike), the actor in Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical was phenomenal. Once you realize how he's playing the character, you're going to love him in the titular role.
Surrounding him is a cast of eccentric, but surprisingly straight characters to the ridiculous Scrooge. The combination works extremely well to tell a well-known story in an admirably clever, creative way.
There is some criticism of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical that needs to be expressed. One of the ongoing debates of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is whether the story is secular or a Christian allegory. Much like how J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is actually a Catholic story, despite any direct reference to Christ, the Pope, or anything of the sort; A Christmas Carol is at face value almost entirely secular (except for the isolated Christianity of Bob Cratchit's family used mostly as a tool to make the characters more lovable). The beauty of these stories is in their subtlety.
As one should expect from the Family Christian Center, Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical is a bit more aggressive in sending the message. While it wasn't bad in the first half of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical, it crossed the line and became garish and tacky in the second act when the pastor of the church randomly appears as himself (complete with Chanel belt, tailored suit, designer shoes, Trump toupee, botox skin, and what appeared to be a big-ol' Rolex watch) to convert Scrooge to Christianity. This scene completely killed to momentum of the play and was a true disservice to the incredible work of everyone volunteering behind the scenes and on stage to make Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical something remarkable and deservedly memorable.
The irony of what appeared to be a prosperity gospel preacher advising Scrooge on the Christian faith was sadly lost on some in the audience. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be funny.
While the seemingly shameless self-promotion of the pastor was off-putting and killed the momentum of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical, the Scrooge actor plays it off exceptionally well and eventually gets the momentum of the show going again after I thought for sure it was totally dead.
In fact, I can't share enough praise for the cast of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical for overcoming that as well as they did. Several things clearly went wrong on stage, including props falling over, a horse pooping in front of one of the younger (and now very unhappy) dancers, and the microphones not working, and more. However, they took it in stride and did a really phenomenal job.
One of our only complaints about the cast, assuming the pastor doesn't count as cast, was the excessive use of lip syncing. When you go to see a musical, much like a concert, you feel a bit robbed when the people on stage don't actually sing the songs being heard. However, in the cast's defense, the problem may have been the sound system and they chose to lip sync the songs rather than risk their microphones not working. Everyone in the cast did such a phenomenal job, I'm really eager to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Of the important characters, the Ghost of Christmas Past was done well. The Ghost of Christmas Present somehow came off as a villain and strangely was the scariest with his signature jovial, Santa-like laugh sounding more like a Viking about to rape and pillage. The Ghost of Christmas Past, ironically, was really not scary. This was the first and only rendition of The Christmas Carol I can think of where the Ghost of Christmas Future actually has a speaking role. While his lines are meant to be scary, they're not really delivered any differently than that of the Ghost of Christmas Past, just with fewer attempts at humor. I think their intent with the Ghost of Christmas Future was to make him look tall by hoisting the actor to the ceiling and dropping a long black cloak down to the floor. The actor then held two gigantic fake skeleton arms and attempted to awkwardly gesture them as he spoke and pointed in the general direction of things. Sadly, The Ghost of Christmas Future came across more as one child sitting on another's shoulders and pretending to be an adult Too Two Young style. Proportionally, Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical designers might have made a more convincing Ghost of Christmas Future by using two performers inside a slightly wider costume with each performer responsible for one arm. Being able to control the giant skeleton arms with two arms instead of one would have created less awkward movements and made the ghost a bit more girthier to make him more intimidating. Still, for a volunteer activity, it was an admirable effort.
The most impressive ghost of all was Jacob Marley. The costume design for him and his horse were glorious nightmare fuel. Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical's Jacob Marley might actually be the most scary version of the character I've ever seen. In fact, his costume was so good that he almost looked out of place compared to the more cartoonish version of Scrooge portrayed in Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical. However, that contrast works wonderfully here. It's a shame they couldn't replicate that contrast later in Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical by creating a Ghost of Christmas Future that more closely resembled a horse-backed Wraith from Lord of the Rings.
At the end of the day, it's important to remember that these are all volunteers (except for the pastor) and to put together this style of a production is so impressive that it forces you to overlook the shortcomings of Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical; which are relatively minor compared to its accomplishments.
Verdict for Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical: 3.5 out of 5
I love passion projects, and for a lot of people at Family Christian Center, that's obviously what Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical is. There are parts, especially early, that don't make sense, but the story moves on and you forget about it by the end. The pastor interjecting himself in the play was beyond obnoxious. However, I have to believe the sound system problems were unique to the performance I saw. With all the bells and whistles, it's difficult to believe they have such a poor sound system. The production value was incredible, especially compared to the community-theater quality a first timer to the Family Christian Center would expect.
Katie's parents, Katie, and I all enjoyed Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical.
Would we go to another Family Christian Center play or musical?
Before Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical started, they advertised their March production of Jesus of Nazareth as their upcoming Passion of Christ play. Since we're all Christians, we were of course interested in seeing it.
However, the pastor's involvement on stage just felt sleazy and left a really bad taste in our mouths. Walking out, one of us said, "Yeah, I don't need to see it."
I'm really conflicted. The cast and crew did such an amazing job that I would love to see future projects, especially since the Family Christian Center is only about a half-hour away. On the other hand, I left there joking that I fully expected the pastor to show up that next play on Calvary before Jesus and the criminals to either side of Him and tell them who Jesus is and ask them to pray with him.
That's how off-putting it was. The team putting on Scrooge: A Bah-Humbug Musical did a really good job; but the shameless self-promotion in the middle of it was really not what we're looking for in either our Christian entertainment.
