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The Orange County Register
Friday, December 20, 2002
by Eric Marchese One-man Dickens Show Is a Gift To
Audiences
Reed Boyer offers a flawless
re-creation of the author's public readings,
supported by simple, but effective set, music and costume.
Long
ago and far away - in the early '50s - Emlyn Williams engineerred a one-man
show for himself. In "Emlyn Williams as Charles Dickens,' the
Welsh-born actor portrayed the early 19th-century author in a re-enactment of
Dickens' public readings. Through the years, the show became one of
Williams' most successful performances.
Southern
Californians who love Dickens can count their blessings that local actor Reed
Boyer has, over the past decade, been following in Williams' footsteps.
Boyer's one-man show, "A Charles Dickens Christmas," is as faithful
a re-creation as you're likely to see of the hundreds of reading tours Dickens
conducted from 1855 to 1870.
The
intimate new Bellflower Theater is the latest venue to host Boyer, and given
the popularity of Dickens at Christmastime, the theater is apt to be packed
during this, the show's final weekend. Obtaining tickets, though, is
well worth the try, for Boyer inhabits the Dickens personal comfortably and
gracefully. Even while functioning as a genial, engaging and
entertaining storyteller offering three holiday-related Dickens pieces, Boyer
is a convincingly formal Victorian gent. With the new addition of
original musical underscoring by Tom Kahelin, the show is pure theater magic.
The
show opens with a reading of "A Christmas Carol," which Dickens
(Boyer) tells us is "a ghost story of Christmas, in four
staves." With his spot-on accent, Boyer brings Dickens' words to
life, portraying nearly two dozen characters - a fierce, anguished Marley; a
Fezziwig of good cheer; a gentle and later, grief-stricken Cratchit; a Scrooge
alternately forbidding, terrified, blithely elated. As the storyteller,
Boyer allows us to truly savor and appreciate Dickens skill at detailed
description and the art of telling a great yarn, a unique ghost story whose
subject is spiritual redemption.
In
surveying this show, one can't underestimate Boyer's acting skills. He's
a master at modulating mood - a vital talent for anyone taking on this
endeavor. impeccably attired by Donna Fritsche, Boyer wears a handsome
tux with a prominently visible watch fob and a red carnation in his
lapel. The public reading desk onstage was re-created by Boyer based on
dimensions provided by the folks at the Dickens House in London, complete with
a modest armrest. The desk holds only his texts, a water pitcher and a
glass. there are no pros aside from a handkerchief, which Boyer uses
masterfully.
The
post-intermission selections are where Boyer departs from Dickens' known
public readings - "A Christmas Tree" from 1850 and "What
Christmas Is as We Grow Older" from 1851. Both dovetail nicely with
"A Christmas Carol," their more wistful tone buoyed by Kahelin's
pleasing incidental music, a welcome touch. Again, Boyer shifts mood
without effort, well assisted by his aptly subtle lighting design.
"What
Christmas Is..." is an essay preaching forgiveness and acceptance at
Yuletide, if not throughout the year. "A Christmas Tree" is
also part ghost story, but this time out, Dickens takes a more waggish and
jovial though no less confidential air than in the more famous "Christmas
Carol," a wry tone as close to tongue in cheek as Dickens is likely to
get. It's Dickens recalling the magnificent tree of his childhood, what
"motley objects" each level of branches held, and what each level
signified to him. It's an enchanting narrative in which Boyer, like a
great alchemist, transforms Dickens' words into the colorful, nostalgic world
of the author's, or anyone's, childhood.
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