A Christmas Twist

by Fannie Expositore

Charles Dickens is rolling over in his grave- but it’s okay, because he’s rolling with laughter. “A Christmas Twist” is not your grandma’s Dickens. A head-on collision of the classics “Oliver Twist” and “A Christmas Carol,” with a little Artful (read Orphan) Annie thrown in, this show introduces a few of your favorite characters with, well, a twist.

We meet a young(ish) Tiny Twist, a 6-foot-tall, crippled orphan boy, as he’s tossed from the work house to Fagin’s den of thieves and follow him into the loving arms of Bob and Emily Cratchit, his well intentioned (if somewhat inept) adoptive parents. Sarcasm and merriment ensue as a murder plot hatches between Fagin, an Indian burning, noogie giving Ebenezer Scrooge, and his nephew Mr. Bumble.

The cast includes many well known, albeit modified, Dicken’s characters including an air-headed Ghost of Christmas Past, an alcoholic Ghost of Christmas Present, and a Ghost of Christmas Future equipped with his own version of elevator shoes. Mr. Bumble, Scrooge’s greedy nephew, inundates the audience with an idiom for all occasions (“As harsh as a gruel enema”, “A more gruesome sight than a leper nudist colony”).

Tom Amacher steals the show with his recognizable, but distinctive version of Ebenezer Scrooge. As in previous LSP productions, such as the 2005 season’s “The Compleat Works of Shakespeare (Abridged),” his comedic timing is always right on.

This reviewer gives the show three laughs per minute (that’s three out of three, by the way).

When:
November 30- December 15

Where:
The Rhode Center for the Arts
514 56th street
Downtown Kenosha, WI 53140

To reserve tickets call: (262) 657-PLAY (7529)
www.rhodeopera.org

Fannie Expositore is ExposeKenosha’s “secret” reviewer.