Inspecting Carol

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

They told me the show was funny. They told me the show was a hilarious romp through the classic Dickens tale. They told me it was the story of their lives. They told me I would laugh myself silly. But you know how I am about funny. Sometimes when people tell me something is funny; I end up wondering when and how the funny will strike.

This time they told me the truth. Funny struck and struck hard.

The Soapbox Playhouse, a professional theatre by dubious definition, performs Dickens’ Christmas Carol every year. The production is vital to their existence. It’s the one show that ensures financial stability, allowing the theatre to continue. (Many theatres know the name of that game.)

Passion runs rampant through Zorah Bolch’s veins for The Soapbox. It’s her life, her heart, and her soul. Paige L. Larsen takes Zorah on an unrestrained ride to succeed or die trying as the director. Unrestrained, because she pays attention to some vital pieces of information, while ignoring others. In her tumultuous helter skelter journey, she keeps everyone hopping as does the microwave when popping corn.

The one character that seems to have her head screwed on straight, nearly strips her gears amidst the confusion. The Stage Manager Mary Jane (M. J.) tries very hard to keep everyone in line. L. Corwin Christie attempts the illusion tight-lipped determination. She might as well ask the grasshoppers in my backyard to line up in single file and jump across the yard in unison to keep my puppy entertained. (Yes, there are still grasshoppers in November.) Christie provides M. J. with a touch of reality that is very funny in its own way to think anyone could keep the cast for this production of Christmas Carol in a line of any kind.

Robert Kramer plays Larry Vauxhall who plays Scrooge. Larry has played Scrooge for years. He’s bored with Scrooge. He’s so bored with Scrooge last year he delivered all of his lines in Spanish. Kramer lets Larry out to play in full view of arrogant foibles.

With the cast in some kind of rehearsal, Wayne Wellacre desperately approaches M. J. He’s late for auditions. He wants to audition and he only has one day to do it in. M. J. tries very hard to brush him off, but Wayne isn’t going to be brushed off that easily. Christian Mast takes Wayne for a celebrated roller coaster ride with more dips, curves, and bumps then ten normal roller coasters. Impetuously eager, Wayne doesn’t comprehend the word no in any language. Dorothy Tree-Hapgood (Jan Cleveland) hobbles in with her foot in a cast. Andy Anderson covers himself with the façade of Phil Hewlit who plays Bob Cratchit, fed up with carrying Tiny Tim on his back. Luther Beatty (Joe Hill) a strapping young man is anything but tiny. Beatty knows Joe, giving a kid of varied interests full-blown distractions. In a zany cast, he holds his own.

While Zorah flits from one issue to another, and the cast embroils themselves in arrogant complaints, Walter begs for rehearsal to begin. Played by Joseph Graves, Jr., Walter finds himself in deep waters. This is not only the first time he has done Christmas Carol, he becomes aware he is the theatre’s token black. On his own, he creates uproar as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, refusing to wear the costume because it smells. Graves’ ability to provide Walter with deadpan expressions of confusion because he doesn’t know his lines, because he never had opportunity to rehearse is hysterical enough. The costumes he ends up wearing defies description. Life gets even more complicated for him. He’s the first black actor for this theatre, and he’s covered from head to toe wearing a white glove. So who knows the theatre has its first black actor?

Every theatre has to have one, and Chris Bleau plays Kevin Emery the auditor who only has bad news for Zorah. The theatre is broke. Not only is the theatre broke, but the National Endowment for the Arts is cutting their funding. If that’s not enough, they are sending an Inspector to evaluate the theatre. Bleau cuts to the chase with Kevin, providing funny by not being funny, which allows him to be very funny.

Wade Livingston plays Sidney Carlton who trumps up mass confusion with a ghostly impersonation of Marley and a chain around his ankle that manages to have a life of its own.

If this weren’t enough, Zorah jumps to conclusions that the never-take-no-for-an-answer rattled actor, Wayne is actually the inspector in disguise. Catering to his every hair brained whim, the hilarious roller coaster ride turns upside down and sideways as panic breeds panic and confusion breeds confusion.

You only think Act I is amusing, and it is, but the fun sprints into a riot during Act II with the troupe actually thinking they have a show to do. That’s when the production breaks into a screaming riot.

One of the funniest people on stage has very little to say. He leans against walls. He crawls under the stage to manipulate trap doors with puppets on sticks, while he wears a deadpan-bored expression. He makes no demands, tries to do what he is told, and Andrew Hall turns Sergeant Bart Frances into a delicious straight man.

When Nancy Nyhus slips into the theatre to see the performance as Betty Andrews, the chaos ignores her until the chaos knocks her out.

Directed by Rick Bernstein, Daniel Sullivan wrote Inspecting Carol in collaboration with other artists while in residence at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Leaning on their own theatrical experiences, they zeroed in on Nikolai Gogel’s 1836 one act play The Inspector General in which “a dim-witted clerk is mistaken for a visiting government authority.”

For this production to live up to its hilarious number one rating, it demands actors who have sharpened their expertise to razor edge comedy. It demands finite timing, and it demands a director having eyes all over his head to envision everything that goes on all the time, which is no small trick. This is a cast of characters who insist they not wait on ceremony for anyone. They’ll take their center stage anywhere they can find a corner. Keeping up with the antics is a full-blown eye and brain coordinated exercise.

The direction is precisely choreographed. The script, exceptionally funny. But it’s the actors who climb inside, giving voice to the hilarity. They do it, and they do it well. They gave me a truth. Inspecting Carol is not only funny; it’s a riot on a pop sickle stick, on a postage stamp stage, with characters who think they are the cat’s pajamas, when actually they are just the cat, with actors who really are the cat’s pajamas hand spun from golden silk.