Dolly and Dickens, is a match we didn’t know we needed until The Arts Club brought them to the stage. Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol is a brilliant new adaptation of Dickens’ holiday classic, A Christmas Carol. After a dark 21 months, The Arts Club Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, is filled with heartwarming performances until January 2, 2022.
Acclaimed director Bobby Garcia (Beneath Springhill) guides a cast stacked with Vancouver’s top talents. Adapted by David H. Bell with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, the well known story moves from Victorian London to depression-era 1936 in Dolly’s beloved Smoky Mountains of Tennessee which Set Designer Shizuka Kai brings to life with a stripped down barn serving as the community gathering place for them to tell their story. Costumer Designer Carmen Alatorre has updated the rags of the poverty-stricken or velvet of high-society London to practical down-home garments for the folks of Morton’s Holler. Joining the players onstage, the band, given extra Tennessee-twang by Kathleen Nisbet on fiddle and Shaun Verreault, banjo and mandolin, are ready to get this hootenanny underway.
While we all may know the story, this adaptation feels new and fresh, bringing a renewed sense of community, redemption and emotions to the tale. Dolly Parton’s songwriting style perfectly suits the homespun narrative playing out onstage, you can almost hear her telling stories with these songs, much like classic “Coat Of Many Colors”. In this case it’s not Dolly singing to us but a spectacular ensemble. Lead by David M. Adams as Ebenezer Scrooge, the rest of the cast plays all of the parts within the play, often switching characters and costumes right before our eyes – this is only slightly distracting when Synthia Yusuf is playing both Ebenezer’s love interest and sister in the same costume. In addition to Ms Yusuf, other stand outs include Chelsea Rose, Jonathan Winsby, Charlie Gallant, Krystal Kiran and many others, all of whom you may recognize from leading other productions. The role of Tiny Tim alternated between Georgia Acken and Rickie Wang, who portrayed the role on the night we attended.
Being the first full-scale production to return to an Arts Club stage in nearly two years brought with it a lot of anticipation and emotion. The audience was buzzing with excitement, of seeing a full house again and in anticipation of this production. Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol has only been staged once before, it’s World Premiere in Boston in 2019. With the Arts shutting down shortly after, The Arts Club’s Ashley Corcoran eagerly secured the rights for this Canadian Premiere. It seems fitting that the show to lead us out of the COVID-era (hopefully) would be created by the artist who helped fund research into the vaccine allowing us to watch the show (all attendees must show proof of full vaccination). Let’s give a warm round of applause to Dolly for bringing us back to the theatre, and the Arts Club for bringing this superb production of Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol to the stage.
Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol runs at The Arts Club Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage until January 2, 2022. More show details, COVID protocols, and tickets can be found at artsclub.com