Artist Interview: Actor and Playwright Anthony Lawton
The creator and star of CHARLES DICKENS’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL shares the memories he drew on to create the performance and why he returns to Dickens’ timeless tale year after year
Returning to the stage December 2 through 27, 2023, and streaming on demand December 15, 2023, through January 7, 2024, Lantern Theater Company is thrilled to again present our original adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, created by acclaimed playwright and actor Anthony Lawton in collaboration with Christopher Colucci and Thom Weaver, and presented in partnership with Lawton’s Mirror Theatre Company.
Lantern resident dramaturg Meghan Winch sat down with Lawton to chat about returning to this tale year after year and why it endures throughout the centuries.
MEGHAN WINCH: This is the sixth year the Lantern has produced this show. Could you remind us of its origins? How did you get the idea and how was it created?
ANTHONY LAWTON: When I was a kid, we had a record album of some British actors doing a radio drama presentation of the story. It was, I think, 60 minutes. Paul Scofield did the narration. Ralph Richardson was Scrooge. And every year I would lie on the sofa in our living room and turn out all the lights except for the Christmas tree and listen to this album. I did that for many years, probably from the time I was 9 or 10. And so, years later as I was trying to think of a solo show, the idea came to me. My initial thought was taking inspiration from that album, which takes so much advantage of the imagination of the audience — and which is one of the things I really like about solo shows and about, say, Shakespeare or any well-written drama. If the language is crafted in the right way, you recruit the imagination of the audience to paint a picture and to establish mood.
So I thought, “Well, let’s do it very simply. We’ll do it with language, we’ll do it with sound design, as was the case with the LP. And we’ll have lights, and that’ll be it. There won’t be a set, there won’t be a cast.” So that was the germ of the idea.
MW: Have you revisited that recording at all?
AL: Oh, many times. I was able to get it on a cassette tape. Because I don’t think you can get it on CD or anything, but you can get everything on eBay, of course. So, I listen to it still every year. It’s great. It’s so good.
MW: On a technical level, what’s it like to come back to this every year? What’s your preparation like? Has that changed?
AL: Well, there’s the question of relearning the text. That usually takes me about four or five days. And then there’s the question of physical execution. This is our sixth year doing it. And I was doing a lot of physical training over the last maybe 10-15 years, largely for the sake of my work. So, for many of the last six years, I’ve been in the best condition of my life to do this show. But the physical demands of this show are so great that I can’t tell the difference between a year when I’m in really great shape and a year when I’m not. There are a few segments of the show where it’s all I can do to get enough breath to say the words I have to say. I was worried this year that I wasn’t going to be up to it. And to my surprise, it’s not any harder this year than it has been in years when I’ve been in really good shape.
MW: The text hasn’t changed, and the staging hasn’t changed for the most part. What has changed for you over the six years? Is there anything that hits differently, or that feels more important to you now than did at the beginning?
AL: You know, the question of memory and the question of love and relationship and home and safety — all of those things are hitting a little closer to home for me this year. Also, another theme that we wanted to address with the piece, and an arc that we wanted to create with the story, was, “Who is this Storyteller?” And the way we answered the question was to say, “Well, this is a guy who’s been telling this story for 180 years, and when he started telling the story, he thought it was going to change the world. He thought it was going make the world a better place. And so, in the modern day and over the arc of the 180 years, he’s gotten used to telling the story as if it’s a silly story, as if it’s trivial, as if it’s a fun, cute story. And on this particular day, we imagine that he suddenly realizes, “This story has not made the world a better place. In fact, it’s in some ways worse than ever.” So to have that moment at the beginning of the show where the character goes, “Oh, I need to reboot this story,” in a world where we have Israel and Palestine and Trump and Ukraine — those realities are a little easier to play, for what it’s worth.
MW: What is it about the Dickens story that you think is so enduring? And what is it about your telling of it that you think brings people back every year?
AL: I think what Dickens gets at is that we want to believe as we get older and as we acquire wisdom that we can redeem ourselves, that we can make up for our errors — the errors of our past and the damage that we’ve caused, the degree to which we’ve isolated ourselves. That’s, I think, a deep-seated wish in everybody’s heart. Dickens’ articulation of that desire in this story is probably the best articulation of that desire. I think it’s a primal desire — the desire to somehow set things right and set on a new path and make up for lost time. So that’s my best theory as to what explains the success of his story.
I think what I bring to the story is just a respect for the language — the language as music, and the language as composition. When I do a solo show, it’s always a wordy show. I like words and I like to deliver words with specificity and commitment. As we compete more and more with cinema and TV, I think language begins to take a backseat. Writers more so now tend to write the way people actually speak, and they want the subtext to come up through words that don’t mean what they say. That’s a very special skill. But I like language that’s a little more like Shakespeare and Dickens, where the author takes extraordinary pains to just speak very specifically. So I think it’s my respect for that language and my delivery of it that makes this Christmas Carol unique.
MW: What do you want the audience to take away? And has your answer to that question changed over the years?
AL: No, I don’t think it’s changed. I’ve always felt that what I want the audience to take away from this piece is a renewed investment in relationships and a diminished relative concern for status and for material gain. When we’re dying, we’re not going to be lying there thinking, “Boy, I wish I had made more money and I wish I’d gotten more promotions, and I wish I’d been more important.” We’re going to lie there wishing, “Boy, I wish I’d been closer to the people who are important to me, and I wish I was less lonely.” I think that’s the idea at the center of it. That’s always been the same for me.
MW: Is there anything else you want to chat about that we didn’t touch on?
AL: You know, this is the third show I’ve done — including The Foocy at the Lantern and The Light Princess at the Arden — where the assumption partially on my part and partially on the part of producers has been, “Oh, this is a play that anyone of any age can come and see.” And I’ve been wrong with all three of those shows. A Christmas Carol is actually a bad play to bring little kids to. It’s a play about very adult concerns. It’s a play about regret, and it’s a play about taking your mortality into account.
MW: What is it about this story that is a grownup story — which Dickens wrote for grownups — that nevertheless appeals to the kid in us?
AL: Well, there are elements of the fantastic in it. There’s so much about this story that is imaginative and beautifully painted and surprising. I think that’s what speaks to our youthful selves.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
More great reading: See other recent articles and interviews on the Lantern Searchlight blog
Lantern Theater Company’s original adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol returns to the stage December 2–27, 2023, and will be available to stream on demand December 15, 2023, through January 27, 2024. Visit our website for tickets and information.
