Miracles are the raw material of “A Christmas Carol,” the classic Charles Dickens play about a lonely miser and his change of heart. The Sanborn drama students will present the story this weekend as their holiday gift to the community. Though the sense and sensibility of the play is Victorian England, today’s teenagers got into the mood, reciting lines that were penned well before their great-grandparents’ time.
The brick shop fronts and four-poster bed transformed the Sanborn Regional High School stage into old London, and the students transformed themselves into the people of another century. It’s a world where employers could make clerks work on Christmas Day, crippled boys rode on their fathers’ shoulders and ragpickers haggled over an old man’s bedclothes. The Sanborn students plunged right in, without scoffing or questions.
Eighth-grader Tyler Sampsonis, this year’s Scrooge, lurked at the corner of the stage with the Ghost of Christmas Past. “There’s old Fezziwig, bless his heart!” Tyler cried as the spotlight beamed on a group of chattering girls and their “father.” Students in jeans and sneakers went through the moves of the ancient dances, then drank a toast to the Christmas holiday. The scene was quieter at the Cratchit home, where Bob and Tiny Tim came home and Mrs.
Cratchit served “the greatest goose ever.” “Go more slowly,” Misenheimer cautioned Tim’s sisters, as they trooped offstage. “Remember, he’s your little brother and you love him!” Tyler played Bob Cratchit last year. Scrooge is a tougher role, he said. “He has more lines than any other character, and he’s mean and grumpy.” Tyler said he has a simple way of getting in character: “Before I come to rehearsal, I freehand draw,” he said.