Journeys of the Soul: A CHRISTMAS CAROL and INTERSTATE — Reviews

“You think I can change?” asks curmudgeonly legend Ebenezer Scrooge, sounding doubtful. 

That central question is posed, in Jack Thorne’s reworked take on A Christmas Carol, to lost love Belle (Julia Knitel). Returning to her doorstep on Christmas morning, Scrooge repents the obsession with wealth that kept him from proposing decades prior. 

“Of course you can,” replies the kindly Belle, sounding hopeful (if not totally convinced). “Change is within all of us.” 

Of all the embellishments in Thorne’s semi-successful adaptation of Charles Dickens’ enduring classic, Scrooge and Belle’s reunion is among the most moving. Yet, like many of Thorne’s adjustments, the scene is also difficult to defend. 

Why? Because Thorne places it smack in the middle of Christmas morning, breaking up that rousing sequence of a transformed Scrooge spreading charity and festive cheer. That is to say, this scene interrupts the best part of any Christmas Carol. (A highlight if only for the meal that any great actor—in this case, a committed and heartfelt Ceveris—can make of Scrooge waking up a whole new man.) 

That Christmas sequence is even more wondrous in Matthew Warchus’ staging, now at PAC NYC following a 2017 premiere at London’s Old Vic (where it runs every Christmas) and a 2019 Broadway bow. Warchus warmly pulls the audience in, enlisting us as helping hands. Platters of food are passed through the crowd; Ceveris roams the house, spreading joy; a giant turkey flies onto stage via zipline. 

I love a good Christmas Carol, and Warchus’ production (co-directed by PAC by Thomas Caruso) brings a welcome communal spirit to this familiar tale. Meanwhile, Thorne’s script helps in adding some edge—the choice to turn Scrooge’s final ghost into his long-dead sister, for instance, is effective, and also very dark.

Other additions are tricky—like that moment with Belle. I sensed the (valid) frustration of audience members around me, many of them children, at the story stopping in its tracks right as we reached the good part. 

This is my constant relationship with Thorne’s writing, honestly. As a playwright, he frequently sacrifices pacing or structure in favor of some moment he refused to give up. In this case, Thorne is looking to complicate Christmas Carol just a little by acknowledging that change does not arrive one day, then remain constant. His point made, Thorne quickly throws us back into that communal joy. 

Can you zipline in your turkey and eat it too? Maybe not. Thorne’s Carol is ultimately overlong, trapping us within the nightmarish confines of the PAC Cube for over two hours. Still, there is something intriguing in its messiness, in that push-and-pull between questioning doubt and warm comfort. Change, after all, is a messy thing. 

———

Red, the caustic single mother at the heart of Amina Henry’s road trip comedy Interstate, is also trying to change. Much as she insists otherwise. 

“Girls, I think I’m too old to change,” Red confesses to her daughters, Robin and Sibyl, towards the end of their cross-country journey. “Is that okay?”

In truth, Red has grown quite a bit on the road, beginning to accept Sibyl (a superb Will Wilhelm), who comes out as a trans woman somewhere in Ohio; and finally connecting with long-neglected younger daughter Robin (a very funny Marvelyn Ramirez) by the time they reach Texas. 

And all three come to accept that grandma, who Red can’t reach, most likely transformed into a bird.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” says Robin calmly. “She’s a part of us and she’s a bird, so it’s kind of like we’re birds now, too. Maybe we can fly now, in our own ways.”

Interstate is an enjoyably strange if ultimately overlong new work by Henry, presented by That Old Hillside at Dixon Place through December 20. It follows Red and her teenage children as they criss-cross the country, stopping for depressing tourist sites and visits to Red’s many unfortunate exes.

The play is strongest when it keeps focus on Sibyl and Robin. Certainly Amy Hargreaves makes a meal of Red, committing to the character’s frequent cruelty and never pushing to make her likable. But Red’s wild emotional extremes often feel unearned, suggesting an instability that Henry doesn’t fully unpack. Her children, on the other hand, feel like fully-formed creations in Cat Miller’s warm, empathetic production. 

Especially moving is Sibyl’s encounter with a horny local (Nicholas Turturro, expert in multiple roles), to whom she impulsively confesses her newfound gender identity. Henry is great at crafting these kind of random encounters—heartfelt yet humorous, a little bizarre. She pulls off the same balance with a scene at a safari, when a cheery tour guide (Wesley Zurick, excellent as always) breaks into song without warning or explanation. 

But as Interstate pushes on (past a needless intermission), the play ultimately loses focus, spending too much time on side quests and strange locals while the family dynamic starts to repeat itself. But a sharp, witty 90-minute work is in there, ready to be unearthed.