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Monday, December 2, 1996

THEATER:

Patrick Stewart brings his version of the classic to Los AngelesBy Simon Dunstan

Daily Bruin Contributor

The holidays are just around the corner, and what would the season be without "A Christmas Carol"? But one of this year's most celebrated versions is a bit unusual.

This new adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic, which opens Tuesday at the James A. Doolittle Theatre, is performed by none other than Enterprise captain Patrick Stewart. His extensive background in theater has enabled him to single-handedly take on 40 characters with the greatest of ease.

Patrick Stewart's return to the live theater has been an extremely successful one. Stewart performed "A Christmas Carol"for four consecutive sold-out holiday seasons. He took the production to Broadway in 1991, 1992 and 1994, and to London's Old Vic Theatre in 1993, where it won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.

Stewart explains how he got the production on its feet and why he wanted to return back to the stage.

"I created the show here in the autumn of 1988. It was the beginning of the second season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' I had to come to terms with the reality that the series was not going to go away," Stewart recalls. "It meant that I had to be in Los Angeles for 10 months of the year for a six-year contract. This made me very concerned because I was wondering what was going to become of my theater career. I didn't want to become one of those actors who leaves the theater for a great tan in Hollywood. What a waste, what a shame."

His very first draft of "A Christmas Carol" went on to become a performance for a UCLA Dickens scholar and was then performed at UCLA's Wadsworth Theater.

"I put together about a half-dozen different shows and one of them was 'A Christmas Carol.' I tried it out firstly with a friend of mine from UCLA who happens to be a Dickens scholar. After working with the adaptation for about 5 to 6 weeks, I sent it to him for his approval. He gave it his blessing and said it was the closest adaptation he had ever read.

"He arranged a first reading in Santa Monica at a sitting room. From there we decided to have our first performance at the Wadsworth Theater. This was the adaptation's first performance in front of an audience. From there we did it for two seasons and only decided to take it further after receiving a very good review from the music editor of Variety. This review was the basis of our motivation to get it to a wider audience."

Stewart took his new adaptation of the Dickens classic to New York to see if he could get it on Broadway. But he met with a lot of closed doors.

"When I first tried to get it to Broadway, they all passed on the project and said, 'Who is this English guy doing some television show and wants to do "A Christmas Carol" all on his own? You have got to be out of your mind.' And they all passed," Stewart says.

Little did any of those producers know that Stewart's adaptation would go on to become a huge success on Broadway.

But it took a lot of work to achieve that success. Performing "A Christmas Carol" solo was extremely challenging for Stewart. In his adaptation, he has to go through many different emotions with each of the characters in a matter of seconds. One minute he is Ebenezer Scrooge, then suddenly he has to change into Tiny Tim. Stewart talks about the emotional roller coaster he goes on while performing on the stage.

"There is an emotional line that runs through the whole event the moment I walk on stage. That emotion is quite intense, quite fierce. Scrooge takes the emotional level to the darkest moment you can achieve. Using this emotional line you build up this bobby of intensity to do with Scrooge's emotion, then use it to bounce backwards and forwards from the different emotional levels that need to be achieved.

"The part where Scrooge's nephew invites him to come for Christmas dinner ­ you can see that there are two extreme experiences. You use one as a sort of a launch pad for the next one. So the more cheerful that Scrooge's nephew becomes, the more intensely miserable Scrooge becomes. You can use the emotions as a kind of springboard. It gets hard when it comes to nine characters at the family's Christmas party and I have to stay in touch with all of them. This requires some very fancy footwork," Stewart says, but the seasoned actor is happy to take the challenge if it means being back on the live stage.

"Theater is my life and I cannot do without it."

THEATER: "A Christmas Carol," starring Patrick Stewart, opens Tuesday, Dec. 3 at the James A. Doolittle Theatre and runs through Dec. 22. For more information, call (213) 972-0700.

James A. Doolittle Theatre

Patrick Stewart stars in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," running Dec. 3-22 at the James A. Doolittle Theatre.

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