ON STAGE
What: A Christmas Carol
Where: The Roxy Theatre, 2657 Quadra St.
When: Dec. 9-15
Tickets: $37.80 (in-person) or $25 (livestream) from bluebridgerep.ca or 250-382-3370
Toronto actor Sanjay Talwar has kept emotional exhaustion at bay over the past 12 months with help from Victoria’s Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre.
The assistance and support of the company’s staff and crew of has been a lifeline for Talwar as he navigates his second run of solo performances in A Christmas Carol, which gets underway tonight and runs through Dec. 15. Talwar starred in the same Blue Bridge production last year, in-person performances of which were scuttled at the last minute due to the provincial lockdown. The production ran from Dec. 3 until Dec. 20, 2020, with exclusively livestreamed performances.
That up-and-activity takes a toll on an actor who is tasked with portraying 50 characters over 90 minutes in the Charles Dickens classic, including the opposing roles of Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit.
“We were closer to opening night than we were to the beginning of rehearsals when B.C. locked down last year,” Talwar said. “I fully expected to have the show canceled, so I was thrilled when Blue Bridge Bridge decided to livestream the whole run and continue the process. But I don’t think I realized how weird it is to do a show in a theatre and not have an audience.”
A Christmas Carol is being remounted for a second time in 12 months this week, once again at The Roxy Theatre. This time around, however, it is being presented in a much more authentic manner, with both in-person and online performances being offered. Jacob Richmond returns as director, and the very same crew members who worked on the 2020 version — Hans Saefkow (set design), Pauline Stynes (costumes), Rebekah Johnson (lights) and Alex Wlasenko (sound) — are back for the 2021 installment.
The atmosphere surrounding the production has greatly improved, especially now that audiences have returned, Talwar said. But the new normal will take some getting used to, he added.
“It has been really, really tough on our industry — film and television seem to have rebounded quite a bit faster, because they were able to go back to work earlier,” he said.
Talwar works year-round for the Shaw Festival in Niagara, Ontario, which produced a season of outdoor performances this year. He rolled with the changes to the best of his ability, and is grateful for the opportunity provided by the Blue Bridge production. “I’ve tried to be patient. There’s a whole new world out there, and we’re just trying to figure out where we are, what we can do, and how to get back on track presenting live performances to people.”
He’s no stranger to challenges in his line of work, from starring in a run of Shakespearean classics (As You Like It, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Julius Caesar, Macbeth) at Ontario’s Stratford Festival to playing a doctor faced with a zombie apocalypse in Zack Snyder’s 2004 film, Dawn of the Dead. COVID-19 is its own alternate universe, however, and Talwar said its impact has made him better appreciate elements of live theatre he once took for granted.
“I can’t even describe to you what it was like when I walked into the Roxy Theatre,” he said. “It was probably the first time I had been in a theatre in six or eight months. The potential energy of the place, I hadn’t even begun to understand how much I missed it until I got back to it.”
That his return to the indoor stage comes via a Dickens Christmas classic about a grumpy miser whose icy veneer slowly begins to melt is all the more fitting, he said.
Audiences are not only happy to have Christmas right around the corner, they are equally enthused about seeing live theatre once more. “The input that every audience has on how a show goes is something that was sorely missing last year. You can really feel the energy of an audience when you’re on stage, and it influences an effects the show. We’re getting back to that, and letting the audience help sculpt how the show goes.”
