ON STAGE
A Christmas Carol
Where: Belfry Theatre
When: Opens tonight, continues to Dec. 16
Tickets: $25 to $40 (250-3856815)
Think playing Scrooge is easy?
It's not.
So says Tom McBeath, the veteran Vancouver actor who portrays penny-pinching Ebenezer in a theatrical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
McBeath knew beforehand Scrooge was the lead role, of course. But when Belfry Theatre artistic director Michael Shamata (who directs and adapted the tale) hired him, the actor didn't quite comprehend the enormity of his task.
When McBeath was forced to beg off three days of rehearsals due to prior commitments, Shamata cocked an eyebrow.
"He said, 'This is a really big journey here,' " McBeath said at the theatre.
It certainly was. Forget the pop-culture stereotype of Scrooge as a twinkle-eyed curmudgeon. Shamata aims to get back to the heart of a character who makes a remarkable transformation - from being a blue-lipped misanthrope to a man who fully re-engages with humanity.
McBeath, who has acted for 40 years, has played some of theatre's giant roles, such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
"It's a different kind of mountain, but this play takes as much energy," said the 60-something actor. "Yeah, I'm exhausted."
This Christmas Carol is a big show in many ways. There's a whopping cast of 14. Seamstresses worked overtime creating 68 period costumes (the colour-coded schedule grid for costume changes looks like the blueprint for a military campaign).
It's not McBeath's first experience with Dickens's greatest hit. In 2003, he performed a one-man show, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, at Chemainus Theatre Festival. That was also a significant task, requiring him to play a half-dozen characters and memorize 68 pages of dialogue.
It was also a slog, McBeath said. Audiences at Chemainus, who tend to be elderly, would fuel up beforehand on "pasta and mashed potatoes" at the dinner theatre. Combining Dickens and carb-heavy fare had a soporific effect.
"You'd look out and two-thirds of them would be just gone," McBeath recalled.
As well, there were no other cast members to chat with during his 2 1 /2-month sojourn. He found in his offstage hours, there was little to do in The Little Town That Did.
"There was no social life. I just turned into this ... monk."
It was his enthusiasm for a lively social life that, in part, got McBeath into acting. As a young man, he worked as a computer programmer from 1968 to 1972 for Air Canada in Winnipeg. When a group of attractive young women he met in a bar invited him to audition for an amateur theatre production of Oklahoma, McBeath didn't need to be asked twice.
He soon found himself an in-demand performer in community theatre. This encouraged him to chuck his job to study theatre at the University of Alberta.
McBeath admits that, as a young actor, he was cocky.
"Young actors can be unbearable," he said. "There was lots of chaos involved. It was like, 'Oh, f--k you, I'm the greatest, get out of my [way]. If I didn't like somebody, I'd try to act them off the stage, make them look like idiots."
One day, a college theatre designer chastised McBeath for "mucking around." During our interview, he acted out this memory, demonstrating how he was told to consider his responsibilities to other actors, directors, designers ... even the playwright.
The lecture had an effect. He changed his attitude.
Today McBeath is a nationally known stage actor who's had some success in film and television. He's the winner of three Jessie Richard Theatre Awards. In the TV world, he's best known for his performances as Harry May-bourne on Stargate SG-1.
While he still auditions for television and film, McBeath says the stage is where his heart truly lies. These days, he's just happy to be a part of it.
"When you're young, you believe you're the hottest thing since sliced bread, that the world is just going to take you and elevate you. ... As you grow older, you get a sense of humour about it. You realize you're just a working actor."
