BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Dale Hodges is a seven-year veteran of Playhouse in the Park's holiday perennial A Christmas Carol. She's spent six of them as Mrs. Cratchit. That gives her the greatest longevity of the Cratchit clan, but there are a lot of familiar faces in this eighth edition of the holiday classic. (Ms. Hodges missed year two.)
At Playhouse, Carol is almost as much a family affair for the actors as it is for audiences.
Some version of Carol is playing in dozens of theaters across America because Charles Dickens wrote more than a holiday ghost story. He wrote a story of magic and redemption and put at its center the mean and miserable miser Ebenezer Scrooge.
When the great storyteller sent Scrooge adventuring off with mysterious spirits to re-visit his life, Dickens found the humanity in all of us. We've cheered for the saving of Ebenezer's lost soul for a century. It's as close to a box office sure thing as theater gets.
Christopher Bissonnette is in his fifth and final year of Carol. He started out as Tiny Tim and through the years has handled a variety of roles, last year graduating to Tim's older brother Peter Cratchit.
Now that he's 13, this will be his last year in the junior cast of Carol. Anyway, twin baby brothers arrived in the Bissonnette household in February. A mom with double duties of baby care and driving back and forth for nine performances a week is curtailing Christopher's acting career.
It's OK, he says. The years in Carol have been a "privilege. I'm sorry (it's ending) but I've gotten to do it for a long time." He's not planning to be an actor anyway.
"A lot of what's out there are musicals, and I'm not a good singer -- and there are not that many good (plays) out there." He's eyeing a career in roller coaster design.
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IF YOU GO
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What: A Christmas Carol.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Dec. 27. No performances Dec. 24 and 25. Additional performance 7 p.m. Dec. 21.
Where: Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park.
Tickets: $28-$40 adults, $14 children 12 and under all performances. Unreserved adult seats are half-price purchased between noon and 2 p.m. day of show.
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Bruce Cromer, Susan Baker and J. Patrick Naylor are all in their second year as Cratchits. Mr. Cromer is father Bob Cratchit, who divides his time between the ill-will of Ebenezer Scrooge and his own poor but loving family.
J. Patrick, 7, who likes roller coasters and dinosaurs, is Tiny Tim again. He likes Carol because "it's fun," especially riding on Mr. Cromer's shoulder. He says he's already planning to be at auditions next year "to try out for a different person," which is news to his mother.
Repeat appearance
While it's her second year as Belinda Cratchit, Susan, 12, is in her third year in the show, making her Carol debut in 1996 as Want during Scrooge's visit to what may be the terrifying future.
In addition to Cratchit-ing, Susan is a guest in a Christmas party scene. She likes that "because it feels like a real party," but she likes playing Belinda even better because she gets to "talk more."
Susan is part of a real family in A Christmas Carol. Mother Ellen is the show's musical director.
"She always helps a lot," Susan says. "She tells me what I'm doing wrong."
She pauses.
"Most of the time I stay away from her."
Newcomer to the clan is Kate Mock, 12, as elder
daughter Martha Cratchit. Ms. Hodges says she fits right in.
"There is a kind of bonding," Ms. Hodges says. "The thing about Carol is that when you've done it six, seven, eight times it's not a great acting challenge anymore. It's the camaraderie. A family thing goes on with it.
"I credit that to (director) Michael (Haney) and the Playhouse, which is a nice place to work."
Mr. Haney encourages them to act like a family, they say. They laugh together, do things together and there is the occasional family squabble "about small stuff," Christopher says.
Like the rehearsal day when Kate (who plays the working Martha) and Christopher (for whose character Peter Mr. Cratchit is attempting to find a job) entered into a debate about employment, both the availability and suitability, speaking gender-wise.
"You started it," Christopher tells his stage sister cordially. She sticks her tongue out in response.
"It's good subtextual work," Ms. Hodges says, laughing.
Sometimes when an actor works with youngsters there's a tendency to worry about them, about whether they'll make their entrances, whether they'll drop their lines.
Not here, Ms. Hodges says.
"Christopher is more likely to make sure I'm there. He's very disciplined." She adds that it's a pleasure to watch the youngsters grow. "Susan has blossomed."
The real trick to Carol is maintaining the energy level through nine grueling performances a week. Carol is deceptively large, Ms. Hodges notes, like a musical in its demands. "The space needs it and the show allows it."
J. Patrick gets tired sometimes, but he pretends he isn't, which, of course, is where the acting comes in.
"I try to keep it high-energy," Christopher says. "I always think of the people out there for the first time and I make it as good as I possibly can."
While there are auditions for Carol, Ms. Hodges (and several others in the cast) gets a phone call in mid-summer to check her availability. The youngsters inevitably outgrow their Carol roles, and Ms. Hodges half-worries that her time may be coming.
"I said to Michael that pretty soon he'll have to fire me for being too old." (Like most actors, she won't reveal her age.) Until then, "I'm glad I'm here."
Carol, Susan notes, "is not something you do all your life but when you get the chance you just have to take it."
