It’s the script, stupid: Some flat performances can’t ruin A Christmas Carol

Published in the Portland Phoenix

I have a confession. Even after years in the news business that should teach me to know better, I’ve come to expect Christmas Day off. Though, as Ebenezer Scrooge asks Bob Cratchit to do, I will usually have to come in “all the earlier the next day to make up for it.” Deadlines and publications never relent, even for the most special and wondrous of holidays.

Yet my boss is no Scrooge: She has a business to run and the readers must have their newspapers, but she finds time to remind us, her employees, that she has learned the lesson Dickens teaches — every year since its first publication, six days before Christmas, 1843 — through A Christmas Carol.

Time to relax, to be with families and friends, and to have fun, make merry, and laugh: These are the goals for which everyone, rich or poor, young or old, banker or beggar, is really working. But they are easily forgotten amid the daily grind. Portland Stage Company — along with a number of other local theater companies — annually takes a couple of hours to remind us, with A Christmas Carol, of all the love and joy in the world, and the true bliss that sharing can bring to our mortal existences.

The power of this play comes primarily from the writing itself, the mastery of Dickens’s painting of a world and a man remade by memory, reflection, and fear. In this production, however, Anita Stewart’s directing fails to serve the writing, instead becoming a competing force on stage.

It means this play’s role as a holiday-spirit reminder falls flat, failing to paint with power either the agonizing picture of desperation before Scrooge’s enlightenment or the true nature of his transformation. It does, however, retain its strength as a classic of Christmas storytelling and a heartwarming reminder of the importance of joy.

The show begins with a performance by the audience of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” in which my section’s leader, a young-teenage girl with braids and braces, was in earnest for us to perform well. It was as if by the power of her will alone, she could turn our motley crew of spectators into the “three French hens” we were singing about.

As the play itself begins — with a powerful Scrooge (Tom Ford) in his countinghouse, glowering at his nephew Fred’s (James Hoban) holiday cheer, and berating Bob Cratchit (Mark Honan), who departs late of a Christmas Eve with a much-begrudged Christmas bonus in hand — I felt myself cowering alongside Cratchit, picturing, instead of Scrooge, past supervisors concerned not about how I would spend my holiday or whether I would even celebrate. Instead, they, like Scrooge, worried about looming project deadlines, upcoming events needing preparation and, most of all, themselves.

I count myself lucky that this year, I do not have such a boss. But I am not sure the world has come far from the 1840s England of Charles Dickens, with its waifs and poor grown-ups huddled round braziers, being scattered by the vicious charge of a cruel and irritated wealthy man wielding a cane and a sense of his own self-righteousness.

Dickens (who appears in the production as a narrator played by Edward Reichert) himself suffered poverty and despair, toiling in a debtors’ prison workshop for several months as a boy, while his father paid off creditors. In this story and others, he rails against people like the bosses many still have today. Rather than concerning themselves with the humanity of their employees, Dickens’s wealthy — Scrooge among them — are the utilitarian exploiters feared in today’s world as much as they were 150 years ago.

Portland Stage Company’s weaknesses are in the subtleties, where Dickens excelled. While the fear on Scrooge’s face is very real when he speaks to the Ghost of Christmas Past (Natalie Rose Liberace, who plays all the Christmas ghosts), the sense of doom and dread Dickens writes into that darkly shrouded spectre is missing. So, too, are the senses of urgency on the faces of Ignorance and Want, the urchins who emerge from the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Scrooge’s delivery, perhaps made desperate after seven years of annual shows at PSC (though this is Ford’s first year in the role), is more preachy than revelatory, more exhortation than exultation. Even his “Bah! Humbug!” is without real feeling. Scrooge pleads with the audience to come with him in the spiritual journey, though we need rather to be forced along, as he is by the spirits.

The lighting and ingenious set design, as well as the sound, overlaying multiple effects and voices, are in combination more enthralling than the performance itself. The story does, however, strongly keep its main point, a reminder that lines at the local shopping centers are neither as bad — nor as necessary — as they might be perceived to be.

The children, too, are strong and energetic reminders that youth and hope spring eternal. Maybe — just maybe — your boss will see this show and remember Dickens’s lesson: We who work for our living are worthy of, deserve, and are entitled to our leisure time and our family lives, holiday or not.

A Christmas Carol

Written by Charles Dickens, adapted by Portland Stage Company. Directed by Anita Stewart. With Elizabeth Chambers, James Hoban, Mark Honan, Tom Ford, Natalie Rose Liberace, Daniel Noel, Kelli Putnam, and Edward Reichert. At Portland Stage Company through Dec. 24. Call (207) 774-0465.

Coming home after taking time out on the Ice

Published in the Current

If you thought this week’s cold temperatures were uncomfortable, talk to Ben Morin.

Morin of Cape Elizabeth just got home from a trip to the planet’s southern continent and can’t wait to go back.

He spent seven months, from March through early October, at\ Palmer Station, a U.S. research base on Anvers Island on the Antarctic Peninsula, the section of Antarctica stretching toward the very bottom of South America.

The company Morin worked for, Raytheon Polar Services Company of Englewood, Colo., flew Morin to Punta Arenas, Chile, where he boarded the research vessel Laurence M. Gould for a four-day trip across the Drake Passage to Antarctica.

“On our crossing, it was just as smooth as could be,” he said, calling one of the world’s worst stretches of ocean “the Drake Lake.”

Passing through the Straits of Magellan, at Tierra del Fuego, he said he felt like he was in “the loneliest place on Earth.” A nine-mile wide mouth of water separates Chile and Argentina, and the ship had to make its way between derricks in the offshore oil fields.

All Morin could see, he said, was empty land and flares of fire from the oil rigs.

He was heading south, though, to lonelier climes. As if to ease the way, dolphins began to chase the boat. Morin also saw seals and minke whales along the way.

After peering hard at the land ahead, someone pointed out the station to him. “All you could see was this little radio antenna,” he said.

After breakfast, the ship was close enough that he could see a big oil tank with a message painted on it: “Welcome to Palmer Station.”

Morin decided to go on the trip after looking at the Lonely Planet travel guide to Antarctica, and reading the chapter about working on the continent.

He wanted to go for the adventure, and because, he said, “no one goes there.”

“I’d always loved traveling,” Morin said. He had been interested in the stories of the heroic Antarctic explorers like Scott and Shackleton.

Arriving on the continent, he said, was a rush. “It’s pretty overwhelming when you first get there.” He was heading for winter at the smallest U.S. station on the continent. “You’re on this huge continent and there’s only 50 people there,” he said.

Palmer normally has about 15 or 20 people for the winter months, but a large construction project meant there were 35 people there.

“You really become family,” Morin said. The farthest away he could get from the station was a quarter-mile.

Morin was a general assistant, charged with taking care of a wide variety of tasks. Right when he got off the ship, he was told to head up a nearby hill and tie a tarp over a pile of machinery stored there. The tarp was blowing around, and Morin didn’t know any of the knots people suggested he use. But the effort was successful.

“I guess I did OK, because it stayed there all winter,” he said.

Life at Palmer was good. He saw wildlife all over the place, including Weddell, elephant, fur and leopard seals, Gentoo and Adelie penguins and even a humpback whale. He saw dozens of birds, mostly sheathbills, cormorants, sea gulls and skua gulls, though he also saw storm and giant petrels.

Work wasn’t exciting, but was interesting. With a faraway look in his eyes, Morin remembered the biggest part of his duties.

Known to him as the job code he had to put on his timesheet, “PC 9028” was what took up most of his time: snow shoveling.

With a major reconstruction of the biology lab in progress, Morin also helped with plumbing, electrical work and welding, all “stuff I’d never done before,” Morin said.

He also had to work in a boiler room, connecting pipes and equipment for heating as well as a water desalination unit to make drinking water. He was so pleased with how things went that he issued a continental challenge: “It
was the best-looking boiler room in Antarctica,” Morin said.

He made some close friends there, and wants to go back as soon as he can get another job on the Ice.

“The people down there are just so great,” Morin said. “The people were the best part.”

Some did complain about being there, but Morin thinks they have it wrong. “They should feel privileged to be in a place no one will ever go,” he said.

Morin said it was a good job for him, though he is studying for his master’s degree in English and wants to teach college.

After seven months with the same 30 people, he said adjustment to being back in the world was a bit of a challenge, though less so than he had thought. When new people began arriving at the station for the new season, some of them had personalities that grated on the winter staff’s carefully constructed social structure.

As far back as July, Morin said, “small talk had just been thrown out the window.”

As he left Antarctica, he went up onto the deck of the ship to watch the station slip into the distance.

“The sunsets at Palmer were amazing,” Morin said.

Some parts of being back are weird, like seeing lots of trees and bright colors. During the time he was away, he and others dreamed of what they’d do when they got home, like go to McDonald’s. But now that he is home, those things don’t seem all that special, he said.

What is special now, in fact, is Antarctica. “There is no other place on Earth like it,” Morin said.

Fort Williams master plan moves forward

Published in the Current

A master plan for Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeht is expected to go to the Town Council early in 2003, laying out plans for a new playground near the Southwestern Preserve, an extension to the Cliff Walk, a tree-planting program, reconfiguring the Ship’s Cove parking lot for better safety and improvements to signs around the park.

The object is to offer direction for future park planners to make decisions about maintenance and upkeep of the park’s buildings, roads, walkways and open spaces, according to Paul Phillipps, chairman of the Fort Williams Advisory Commission.

A previous master plan, adopted in 1990, had been followed almost to completion, Phillips said. “Eighty to 90 percent of what was in that plan had been accomplished,” he said.

To guide the future of the park, the commission decided to create another master plan, even if part of the plan was to change very little of the park. “There are areas that should stay just the way it is,” Phillipps said. Unlike the 1990 plan, there will be no new major capital improvements.

“Maintenance really was the big issue when we started looking at things fort-wide,” he said. There was no plan for maintenance and no way to pay for it. The commission created the Fort Williams Foundation to raise money, but the foundation needs a goal to raise money toward, Phillipps said.

The commission also hired Land Use Consultants of Portland about a year ago to create the plan, bringing together issues relating to the fort as a whole and to smaller areas within the park.

A near-final draft of the master plan is being discussed this week by the commission, and depending on the amount of work remaining to complete the plan, the new chair of the commission will present the proposal to the Town Council in either January or February, said Phillipps, whose term as chair expires at the end of the year.

“The look and feel of the park should not change,” he said. Keeping it up will cost money, and the commission is looking for people to donate or bequeath money to fund some of those projects.

Right now there is a budget from the town to keep the fort going, but there isn’t enough to do some of the work being proposed, and even the money to create a master plan has been cobbled together from savings in small projects over time.

Phillipps said the town’s public works department has a big hand in that, because they work quickly and efficiently and have come in under budget on a number of maintenance efforts in the past few years. He also said Cape based private contractors have been able to help the commission save money.

Town Councilor Mary Ann Lynch last month floated a proposal for charging an entry fee into the fort, which has been projected to raise as much as $200,000. Phillipps said he is personally opposed to charging fees. The commission, he said, has historically rejected charging a fee, following a number of studies.

“Every time we look at it, we come down opposing it,” he said.

Phillipps pointed out, though, that the commission is just advisory and a final decision would be up to the Town Council.

The master planning process is designed to allow for public comment
and input into the overall design and specific options for projects, Phillipps said. “We do want the public’s involvement and participation,” he said.

He expects the Town Council to have a workshop on the plan before voting on it at a public meeting, giving citizens a chance to speak at those meetings as well as Planning Board hearings that would also review the plan.

Cape schools ask for security cameras

Published in the Current

Citing intermittent but costly vandalism problems, the Cape Elizabeth School Department is asking for a $10,000 security camera system to be installed at the high school. The request comes in the schools’ capital improvement budget requests, reviewed by the Finance Committee Tuesday and sent to the Town Council for its review.

The system would be capable of monitoring up to 16 cameras, according to Facilities Manager Ernie MacVane, who told the Finance Committee the system will improve security “in areas that do not have supervision” around the high school.

He said he would expect to install only three or four cameras, in the industrial arts wing, the lobby outside the gym and auditorium, near the locker rooms and one possibly outside, looking at a grassy area in the rear of the building.

Those are all locations, MacVane said, where vandalism and damage costs are adding up.

“We are finding that we have these episodes of significant damage,” he said. Often incidents are several weeks apart, so they are hard to look out for, he said.

“Most of the damage is after school,” he said.

Superintendent Tom Forcella said the system would include videotape capabilities, so if vandalism was noticed or damage occurred, school officials could review the tape to see who was involved.

The system could be monitored in the main office, and the cameras would be installed in domes that would look somewhat like smoke detectors, MacVane said. Signs would be installed notifying people that they are being videotaped, he said, and he wants the cameras to be visible as a deterrent.

“I wouldn’t want it to be secretive,” he said.

Cameras in the school, he said, could catch people doing damage to ceiling tiles or other school facilities, as well as taping people who enter the building who are not students or staff .

“We have our share of walk-ins,” MacVane said.

Cameras outside could get descriptions and license plate numbers of cars that periodically have driven around on the school lawn, damaging the
grass.

“It would be nice to show them the tape after (an incident) and recover our costs,” MacVane said.

Another outside camera may be located on the Community Center building, with a view of the road between that building and the high school, MacVane said. There is also conduit for a cable to carry that camera’s view to the police station, where it could be viewed by dispatchers.

Forcella said that camera location was proposed because of an incident earlier in the year when three trees were cut down at the high school during the early hours of the morning.

School Board member Kevin Sweeney said he was concerned about trying to outsmart kids with the cameras.

MacVane said he could install multiple camera housings and fewer actual cameras. The cameras could then be moved around without students’ knowledge.

School Board member Georg e Entwistle suggested the investment might pay for itself in preventing damage or recovering costs from vandals. He also said the school should be careful about how the system was described.

Pipes burst at aging Cape high school

Published in the Current

Aging heating equipment led to pipes freezing and bursting in the early morning hours Tuesday at Cape Elizabeth High School, soaking desks and floors in five classrooms and a sizable portion of the library. At least an inch of water was on the floor in several rooms before the water was turned off.

Facilities Manager Ernie MacVane said maintenance staff check the building’s heating and plumbing systems each morning to make sure there are no problems, and at 6:20 a.m. saw that some of the rooms were still cold.

Upon inspection, water was pouring from the heaters in several rooms, soaking through floors and ceilings into rooms below.

Plumbers, off-duty bus drivers (who also serve as custodians) and the district’s maintenance staff were all called in to help deal with the damage and cleanup.

Five computers in the library, including the card catalog computer, were ruined, but only about a dozen books were lost.

“Luckily, we got the books out of the way,” said Librarian Joyce Bell. Some of the books that had been threatened were special collections about the Vietnam Wa r and the Spanish Civil War, as well as reference books.

Water running along ceiling tiles stopped just before it entered a networking equipment closet, said Ginger Raspiller, who takes care of the school’s computer equipment. It could have damaged the building’s internal computer network as well as its connection to the Internet and other school district computer systems.

The computer lab adjoining the library was also spared. But the damaged equipment did include a new printer and image scanner purchased by the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation for teacher Charlotte Hanna’s project to boost math performance for all students, Raspiller said.

MacVane estimated that the cleanup would take “a few days,” and could cost “a couple thousand” dollars each day, just for the labor. About three years ago, he said, when the last pipe break occurred in the school, it cost about $16,000 total.