A Christmas Carol

By Brady Grove, Times Reporter

The Strathmore High School (SHS) Drama 20/30 class performed the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol on Dec. 17, as the Grade 11 and 12 students took the audience through Ebenezer Scrooge’s harrowing night in which he transforms from a selfish, bitter old man into a compassionate gentleman filled with Christmas spirit.
Scrooge was played by Luke Schramm, who had an incredible performance portraying the cruelty of mocking and insulting those around him for wishing his character a “Merry Christmas” and then transformed into the trembling, bumbling beggar as the spirits began haunting him. He capped it off with explosive joy and happiness upon the revelation of a better Christmas and did all this while facing the challenge of being on stage for nearly every second of the performance.
“It just comes from practice and repetition and getting those lines down and then just playing around with different voice and tones and slowly it comes together,” said Schramm. “Stepping into such a character that’s different than myself … it was difficult and challenging but it was really fun and rewarding to see what I can do on the stage.”
“Even when I cast him I knew he’d be good but I didn’t know he would be that amazing,” said director and teacher Deanne Bertsch.
Schramm led the way and was supplemented by a strong supporting cast. One of the big challenges for the actors was the language.
“The language itself is very old-fashioned,” said Bertsch. “We worked really hard to find the clarity in the speech and for them to find understanding because some of those phrases are difficult to understand even though they’re in English.”
The costume design and set choices were excellent and drew the audience into the time period. Depending on the character it could be a bright green dress or the gray suit of the underpaid Bob Cratchit played by Ryerson Rushford. Some actors played multiple characters and at certain parts had to switch costumes in 30 seconds before rushing back onto the stage.
“It’s a team effort, no one person deserves credit for that (set/costumes),” said Stage Manager Jayden Kotylak.
According to Bertsch, time is major theme of the show, so the crew decided to paint the face of London’s Big Ben onto the stage floor. Each spirit walked around the edge of the clock to symbolize the passage of time; for example, the Christmas Past walked counter-clock wise while Christmas Future walked clockwise.
According to Bertsch, the students had a choice in the play they would perform but it had to be Christmas themed because of their time slot. It came down to two choices: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or A Christmas Carol, which won but only slightly.
A Christmas Carol was performed four more times on Dec. 18 and 19. The class was large enough to warrant having two actors play certain characters such as Scrooge or one of the spirits. George Crawford is the other actor playing the lead character of Scrooge and also played the role of Scrooge’s nephew when not in the leading role, and Bertsch had nothing but praise for him and said he brought more of Scottish flavour to the performance.
The next show for Bertsch will be the Grade 11 and 12 Dance 25/35 performance titled “Can We Autocorrect Humanity?” taking place on Jan. 8-10 at the SHS theatre.