Christmas with Dickens

The most popular Christmas story was probably created by Charles Dickens in his A Christmas Carol. The story of the stingy and callous Ebenezer Scrooge, who, with the help of ghosts, begins to understand the essence of Christmas, becomes generous and repents of his past sins, has given rise to many interpretations in film, television and on stage.

One of them runs only through January 1 at the Nederlander Theater (208 West 41st Street).

Tony winner and brilliant master of impersonation Jefferson Mays has long wanted to bring all the Christmas Carol characters to life on stage himself. In 2018, he first played the dramatization he and his wife created in Los Angeles, and in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he shot a film version and showed it in one of the halls in Manhattan. Now it's finally time for Broadway. Mays plays all 50 (!) roles. Original scenography using the latest technology helps create magical effects and, according to the critic, “coming out into the cold after this Christmas story, you feel full of warmth, reflection and, perhaps, a little less cynical...” In the atmosphere of old New York takes place another one-man show based on A Christmas Story. This is the 10th year he has returned to the famed “merchant's house” on East 4th Street (#29), lovingly preserved, festively decorated and serving as the perfect setting for Scrooge's story. In 1832, when the house was built, it was a new area where wealthy merchants settled. Now almost all the old buildings have disappeared, but the house at number 29 remains, and the same as it was when the family of the merchant Treadwell settled in it many years ago with Irish servants. His three daughters grew up in this house, the last of whom, Gertrude, died here in 1933, at the age of 93, surrounded by numerous family heirlooms. A distant relative of the family bought the house and turned it into a museum. It still has a Victorian feel and may even still have ghosts, just like in Dickens' story. 

That's why actor John Kevin Jones decided to perform his play here. By the way, Jones uses a slightly modified version of Dickens himself, which he read during his own tours of Europe and America.

Author: Maya Pritzker