What occurs while you remodel Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol right into a vibrant exploration of latest socio-economic points? Pink Carol: A Public Humanities Expertise on Social Justice and Empathy, from the pioneering collective The San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT) and set to be carried out at Z House in San Francisco from December 14-29, 2024, reimagines this traditional vacation story—the place six individuals play all of the roles—to deal with trendy problems with inequality, labor rights, and financial justice.
Every efficiency will probably be adopted by a facilitated dialogue led by humanities students, inviting audiences to mirror on themes of empathy, civic duty, and social justice. This undertaking fosters neighborhood dialogue, encourages crucial pondering, and connects the play’s timeless message to the modern challenges going through Californians at the moment.
Pink Carol performs to the strengths of SFMT, which since 1959 has created socially and politically related theater. Recognized for its satirical performances and academic applications, the troupe usually addresses points like civil rights, financial inequality, and environmental justice by way of musical comedies and out of doors productions. We spoke with Michael Gene Sullivan, who tailored A Christmas Carol for this California Humanities-supported manufacturing, about why this humanities-infused manufacturing resonates at this second.
How did you arrive at A Christmas Carol because the supply materials for addressing trendy problems with social justice and fairness in Pink Carol? Inform us how this manufacturing and the Mime Troupe’s distinctive strategy to storytelling that may shock these solely conversant in Dickens’ story.
I’ve been a fan of A Christmas Carol so long as I can bear in mind. The elemental message of shared humanity was an vital a part of what my dad and mom taught me, and so years later, once I had the possibility to carry out in an annual manufacturing at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, it meant fairly a bit. However I seen that quite than being challenged by the manufacturing, many viewers members appeared relieved—they’d finished their half in life by merely being not as dangerous as Scrooge, and in the event that they had been a bit heartless it was okay—there was nonetheless redemption. They didn’t expertise the ghost story Dickens had written as something however leisure.
So, as our nation hurtles backwards to a time of robber barons and social Darwinism, and of curtailed civil rights and a blatant company aristocracy, I felt it was vital to remind audiences what A Christmas Carol was supposed to be—a daunting reflection on how inhumanity is justified with greed in a society that ignores the primary and celebrates the second. These are the financial and human tensions the Mime Troupe underlines with each present—difficult, entertaining, and activating each viewers. I felt setting the present in a homeless encampment, with the manufacturing placed on by the individuals who dwell there, is just not one thing most theatre corporations would enable. A peaceful, conservative Christmas Carol is a monetary asset that different theaters want as a way to survive. However an brazenly activist interpretation, designed to problem an viewers quite than lull them, is a purpose that requires a mode distinctive to the Mime Troupe.
Why are the general public humanities vital to SFMT’s work in productions and tasks like Pink Carol?
The humanities and the humanities are inseparable, as a result of artwork is the language of humanity. Artwork is the human interpretation of ideas or occasions, conveying some extent of philosophy, a standpoint; Occasions Plus, Journalism Plus. Plus humanity. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol reminds the viewers that the story isn’t a couple of single individual getting in contact with their humanity, it’s about all of us. And we could be a part of the answer to not simply our personal issues, however others too. We’re all oppressed by the identical inhumanity, the identical greed and thoughtlessness, however we are able to all be a part of the revolution of thought wanted to free ourselves, and others.
As we transfer into the vacation season, what do you hope audiences will take away from Pink Carol?
As Dickens hoped: that folks would take that sense of shared humanity that they appeared to glimpse at Christmas and apply all of it 12 months lengthy. But additionally, to shake off the psychological shackles of a system that thrives on dividing the working class from itself, a system that convinces employees they’ve extra in frequent with a distant billionaire than with the individual working subsequent to them, a system that has skilled them to be ashamed quite than happy with being a employee —the one kind of individual most People are.
Pink Carol runs from December 14-29 at San Francisco’s Z House. Buy tickets right here.
Any views expressed on this article don’t essentially symbolize these of California Humanities or the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities.
