A Christmas Carol - Script

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CHRISTMAS PAST: A small matter to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.SCROOGE: Small!CHRISTMAS PAST: Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three offour perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?SCROOGE: It isn't that! It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to makeour service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in thingsso slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness hegives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.[He looks sheepishly and guiltily at the Ghost.]CHRISTMAS PAST: What is the matter?SCROOGE: Nothing particular.CHRISTMAS PAST: Something, I think?SCROOGE: No, no. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk, Bob Cratchit, just now.That's all.CHRISTMAS PAST: My time grows short. Quick!BELLE: It matters little. To you, very little. Another Idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer andcomfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.YOUNG SCROOGE: What Idol has displaced you?BELLE: A golden one!YOUNG SCROOGE: This is the even-handed dealing of the world! There is nothing on which it is sohard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!BELLE: You fear the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyondthe chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until themaster-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?YOUNG SCROOGE: What then? Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changedtoward you... Am I?BELLE: Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, ingood season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When itwas made, you were another man.YOUNG SCROOGE: I was a boy.BELLE: Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are. I am. That which promisedhappiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and howkeenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.YOUNG SCROOGE: Have I ever sought release?BELLE: In words. No. Never.YOUNG SCROOGE: In what, then?BELLE: In a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as itsgreat end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never beenbetween us, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!YOUNG SCROOGE: You think not.BELLE: Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible itmust be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose adowerless girl- you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her,if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that yourrepentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of himyou once were... You may - the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will- have pain in this.A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, fromwhich it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen![Belle runs off crying, as the lights start to fade, during which time the bench is removed and replacedby a table and chairs.]SCROOGE: Spirit, show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?CHRISTMAS PAST: One shadow more!SCROOGE: No more, no more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!The lights go out as scene is changed to the home of Mrs. Belle. The Spirit says one line during thisblackness:CHRISTMAS PAST: Yes! Ebenezer Scrooge! One more shadow!HUSBAND: Hello, hello! I'm home!YOUNG MAIDEN: It's father! He's home!HUSBAND: Belle, I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.MRS. BELLE: Who was it?HUSBAND: Guess!MRS. BELLE: How can I? Tut, I don't know. She laughs. Mr. Scrooge.HUSBAND: Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had acandle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and therehe sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.1112
SCROOGE: Spirit! Remove me from this place.CHRISTMAS PAST: I told you these were shadows of the things that have been. That they are whatthey are, do not blame me!SCROOGE: Remove me! I cannot bear it![Scrooge falls to his knees looking up to the Ghost.]SCROOGE: Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer![Ghost of Christmas Past returns Scrooge to his home. Scrooge sleeps briefly before being awakened bythe Ghost of Christmas Present.]CHRISTMAS PRESENT: Come! Come here and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of ChristmasPresent. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!SCROOGE: Never.CHRISTMAS PRESENT: Have you never walked forth with any of my previous brothers, man?SCROOGE: I don't think I have, I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?CHRISTMAS PRESENT: More than eighteen hundred!SCROOGE: A tremendous family to provide for! ...Spirit, conduct me where you will. I went forth lastnight on compulsion, and I have learned a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught toteach me, let me profit by it.CHRISTMAS PRESENT: Touch my robe!Upon Scrooge's touch, the lights flicker and Christmas music is heard playing softly in the background.People start crossing the stage, in a hurried manner, from both sides of the stage. Suddenly one criesout:MAN 1: The Grocers'! Oh the Grocers'! They are soon to close.[As he crosses, another man bumps into him.]MAN 2: Watch where you be going now!MAN 1: Who are you to tell me to watch? You're the bumbler![The Spirit sprinkles Joy and Peace from his horn of plenty on the two.]MAN 2: I am truly sorry fellow. Here we are, arguing on this most Holy Day.MAN 1: Forgive me, man. I am at fault, and have a Merry Christmas!MAN 2: And a Happy New Year to you, my friend![As they depart, more people keep crossing carrying dinners and bags of food. The Spirit sprinklesliberally, from his horn, on each as they pass by.]SCROOGE: Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your horn?CHRISTMAS PRESENT: There is. My own.SCROOGE: Would it apply to any kind of dinner this day?CHRISTMAS PRESENT: To any kindly given. To a poor one most.SCROOGE: Why to a poor one most?CHRISTMAS PRESENT: Because it needs it most.SCROOGE: Spirit. I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to crampthese people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.CHRISTMAS PRESENT: I!SCROOGE: You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day onwhich they can be said to dine at all. You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?CHRISTMAS PRESENT: I seek!SCROOGE: Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been your done in your name, or at least in that of yourfamily.CHRISTMAS PRESENT: There are some upon this earth of yours, who lay claim to know us, andwho do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who areas strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge theirdoings on themselves, not us.SCROOGE: I will! I will, Spirit.THE CRATCHIT HOUSEHOLD.MRS. CRATCHIT: What has ever got your precious father then. And your brother Tiny Tim! AndMartha wasn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?[Martha enters.]MARTHA CRATCHIT: Here's Martha, mother!PATRICIA CRATCHIT: Here's Martha, mother!BELINDA CRATCHIT: Here she is, mother!MARY CRATCHIT: Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!MRS. CRATCHIT: Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are![They kiss and embrace.]1314
Page 1 and 2: A CHRISTMAS CAROLby Charles Dickens
Page 3 and 4: [as they exit a caroler enters thro
Page 5: SCROOGE: I am a mortal, and liable
Page 9 and 10: [He opens his robe/curtain to revea
Page 11 and 12: merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy

A Christmas Carol - Script

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