Manual Cinema's CHRISTMAS CAROL
Manual Cinema’s ‘Trudy’ Mesmerizing “Christmas Carol!”
As things get rolling in Manual Cinema’s stunning live stream holiday masterpiece “A Christmas Carol,” Aunt Trudy (N. LaQuis Harkins) is launching a holiday pandemic version of a virtual family gathering and a traditional storytelling hour with one missing member: her husband Uncle Joe, the chief storyteller and keeper of Joe’s Christmas story box. So, it is up to Aunt Trudy to pull out the stick puppets, position the slide projector and stage herself before dimming the lights to tell the tale.
What happens next is at the heart of the fascinating Manual Cinema adaptation of Dickens’ classic story, a multi-media collage of music, color and shadow puppetry that weaves Ebenezer’s journey from past, present and future together with a present and future that is unique to the time in which we live. The stylized tapestry that is Manual Cinema’s trademark on a live stage has been compressed, rewired and artfully right-sized for the home screen. It’s all ‘Trudy’ mesmerizing!
And it is performed live each night from a bubble of performers in the Manual Cinema studio so the virtual experience is as close as you can get to what happens on a much larger scale in a theater with the same result: we are uniquely and fully engaged, directed to the lens that Manual creates as a way into not one, but two captivating and heartfelt stories.
The age-old story of the miser who is reborn on Christmas Eve after visitations by three ghosts is marvelous in the context of Manual’s spirited production. When layered with the live action narrative and a touching inner story that grabs you and does not let go, Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol is a feast for all the senses that culminates in a hopeful, positive place full of expectation and promise for a better tomorrow.
The Manual collaborative of co-creators host a fascinating interactive post-show tour of the studio, fielding viewer questions live, explaining how the multiple Scrooge puppets are constructed and the projection techniques for magnificent landscapes, a crackling fire and a delicate tear drop.
It was said during the opening night discussion that it is a story “About this time. For this time.” And that it truly is.
Manual Cinema’s
Christmas Carol
Streaming Live
through December 20, 2020
In Association with
WRITERS THEATRE “TWO SCROOGES”
through December 13
ABOUT THE MANUAL CINEMA
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