NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — If you love Christmas movies, you may have noticed; there are a lot of versions of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge has been played by Jim Carrey. He's met the Muppets. He's done everything. Now through December 20, a local theater is performing a take on a classic that can only be described as...tubular.
Keyboard music fired up in the midst of turquoise and magenta lighting. Smoke drifted across a stage.
Ebenezer Scrooge is living in the 1980s in Street Theatre Company's production of A VHS Christmas Carol.
"It's full of Americana and pop culture," said director Sawyer Wallace. "This show is one of many types of shows that feel like, yeah, that's a Street Theatre show. It's weird, and it's interesting, and it's fun."
Wallace said the crew always leans into the unique. It's unique in itself that they're doing shows out of a former barbershop building. They've built an audience from that reputation. The Street Theatre Company is in its 20th season.
"We've got Ernest Saves Christmas, Gremlins," Wallace said, looking over VHS tapes on the set. "Vintage E.T. drinking glass!"
Where do they get those wonderful toys?
Sawyer said the set's made up of little pieces of the 1980s that belong to members of the crew. A Rambo lunchbox. A Cabbage Patch Kid. A Lite Brite.
One shelf had a Rubik's Cube sitting on top of a Pat Benatar cassette. Now, that's '80s!
What's changed in the story? Well, Marley's had a makeover — now sporting a suit that'd make David Bowie proud.
Who is Scrooge in the 1980s?
"He's probably a Wall Street guy," said Wallace. "He does not like 'We Are The World,' right? That's who Scrooge is in the '80s."
When Charles Dickens published this novella in 1843, it wasn't exactly expected that it'd one day be performed on a stage with a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe playset. However, Wallace said the core lesson of the story is the same. You can become a better person.
"It speaks to timeless themes, right?" he said. "The redemption story is one that resonates with everybody."
A familiar story is wrapped in a whole lot of retro joy.
"You can hear the hum of the tube TVs, which bring you to a certain place," Wallace said, referring to the old TVs on the set. "I can't say enough about this community that exists here. The kind of content Street does is the kind that you're not going to get very many other places, and it's going to be a really good time too."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
