Fiction Fix Sixteen

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, as adapted by two founding members of
the Players, Fred Neville and Elmore Streit, is being staged inside to a capacity crowd of
ninety-six.
Cast members – of whom there are twenty-two – not on stage at any given moment
tend to step outside between scenes and gather around the fire. As an unintended consequence,
the smoke attaches to their costumes, lending a semi-authentic wood-smoke
smell, reminiscent of Victorian England, when they return to the stage for a scene.
Scrooge’s nephew is played by Hunter Liston, local foreclosure attorney, who in addition
to supplying the fire pit, brings several folding chairs bearing the logo of the local
university Division I football team, of which he’s a booster. Hunter, a fan of college
football and excess in general, is now on his third wife – the former Paloma Gibble, an
energetic and ambitious real estate broker. Paloma works wicked hours, and rather than
spend any waking time alone, Hunter is always on the make, preferably with girls half his
age, or more sinisterly, younger.
His hair is a problem in this production. It looks too good to belong in Victorian
England, blow-dried and tinted blond. The director makes him wear his hat the entire
time he’s onstage, even during indoor scenes, because Hunter won’t let his hair go natural.
Carla Boyette, mother of Hannah Boyette (who is playing Fan, young Scrooge’s
sister), is also present. Carla is not a cast member, though she badly wants to be. Her
extreme overacting in the audition resulted in a rapid relegation to backstage mom. Carla
is supposed to be in the children’s dressing room helping the kids change between scenes
and generally keeping order. She spends most of the show by the fire, resulting in a few
minor costume errors and nearly missed scenes, not to mention some childish noise leakage
to the stage that has the Assistant Director/Stage Manager constantly distracted.
Carla is more friend than mother to fifteen-year-old Hannah, evidenced by her cavalier
reaction when Hannah and the much older and married Hunter Liston are discovered
between scenes, sitting together in his truck in the dark alley. Although both are fully
costumed, it is obviously not the ideal situation. Hunter is known to keep a nip bottle in
the truck. It isn’t known if he would stoop to sharing with an underage girl.
The single Carla, herself, has some designs on Hunter Liston, who in turn only appears
to have eyes for her daughter. The three of them are gathered around the fire with
other cast members. Carla is somewhat desperately attempting to catch Hunter’s eye.
“You nasty thing,” she says proudly as Hannah juts her budding chest and pouts her
way into a photo with Hunter. He wraps his arm a little too snugly around the girl, and
Carla pretends not to notice.
Fiction Fix 73