Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol Returns
By Nick Nicholas with Wes Hessel
The performance theatre art group Manual Cinema already has achieved an honor most only dream about – in 2017 a video they made for the New York Times called “The Forger” won an Emmy. Once again their signature style is applied to one of the greatest Yuletide tales known.
Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol, this year at the Studebaker Theatre, is a unique adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic ghost story. The narrative is of a woman who performs a puppet version of “A Christmas Carol” over Zoom to continue a family tradition. The hand-operated figures, however, take on a life of their own, and the video call transforms into a cinematic version of the holiday classic.
The greatness of their creativity harnesses the immaculate use of puppetry including shadow projection, and the highest definition of 21st century cameras, grouped with traditional ancient principles of the theatre of shadows, which originated sometime in the 11th century AD in Southeast Asia, then made its way to India, China, Turkey, and then the rest of the world.
Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, film techniques, as well as innovative sound, music, and light to create immersive stories for stage and screen. In this multi-media amalgamation, the characters and places in the groupʼs production are all hand painted images interplayed and handled to bring the action to life by the three puppeteers on stage, who with diamond cut precision, use their hands and fingers to advance the storyline, expressing through cut-outs and animation how the characters feel, all projected on screen above a dinner table with moving storage boxes all around – a room standing still for the moment.
The media maker combines this new framing with highlights from the original Victorian account. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Aunt Trudy, played by the immensely charming and talented LaKecia Harris, starts behind a set of window shutters that she opens and closes to establish the makings of a shadow puppet theatre stage. She hosts and narrates the fable along with sharing her story, that of a character person who is interacting with her family over a video conference during the days of COVID lockdown, trying to recapture the storytelling expertise of her late spouse Joe. She is spending Christmas with her family – and we are included – while mourning the loss of her other half.
And so the old and new stories meet and separate and meet again as they journey for 80 minutes that leave us wanting more like an overnight stay in magic. The table on stage is set for what was and what is to come. The boxes around represent the memories we store and revisit to make sense of the past at a special time such as Christmas. The generosity of spirits guide us through to examine and decide how Trudy handles being in the midst of grief.
All this is accompanied by an original music score and vocals played live by three musicians who youʼd swear sounds more like 30. So the parallel telling of the story of an elder personʼs first Christmas without their significant other – trying to cope, finding reasons to celebrate, all set in Chicago no less – brings it home, and makes this an even more endearing great evening of performance.
This is Manual Theatreʼs third production of “A Christmas Carol”, destined to become a Windy City tradition with its brilliance and close ties to here; a must see, a show that is perfect for every age. It would be a gift of the Magi to witness a childʼs world of perception and imagination after such a performance, much like it was a gift to get invited on the actual stage after the show with its actors, puppeteers, and musicians all present and humble to share and answer questions of any kind. All I can say is awesome – everything and everyone. This illuminating experience runs only through December 29th, so please make haste to their website, www.manualcinema.com, for tickets or more information.
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