Watching the play Scrooge in Rougeis as satisfying as the holiday buffet at grandma’s house. Who cares if no one tampers with the recipe? This is the third (and final) consecutive year that Milwaukee’s In Tandem Theater will produce the show.
This bawdy, raucous musical comedy, mirroring the humor of British classics such as Monty Python, is set in a British music hall at the turn of the previous century. A troupe of 23 actors is about to embark on a musical version of the beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, when 20 of them come down with food poisoning. Hilarity ensues as the cast is reduced to just three to play all the parts in the show.
The original cast returns featuring Chris Flieller (In Tandem Theater's artistic director), Matt Daniels and Marcella Kearns.
Missing actors isn’t the only hurdle for this cast. Sound effects are often bungled (when we think we’ll hear a bang, we actually get a whinnying horse), and lighting cues are equally (deliberately) bad. At one point, when Scrooge says his line, “everything goes dark,” the entire set is plunged into blackness. “Not THAT dark,” he says, waiting until the lights come up to half-power before continuing.
Much of this show’s charm comes from the actors badgering one another. There are also myriad jokes. Some are intentional groaners, and some are Freudian-slip double entendres. The groaners are pretty bad, but the double entendres add some zip to this adult-oriented show.
Matt Daniels is the star attraction of this hit show, but all the actors work so well together, it would be difficult to replace any one of them.
As for Chris Flieller, it would be difficult to pinpoint his finest moment. Perhaps the character who draws the biggest laughs is when Flieller plays Scrooge’s well-meaning nephew, Fred. Flieller plays Fred as a complete dunce (who lisps), so it actually makes sense that Scrooge wants nothing to do with him.
Later in the play, another character wonders if it was Fred’s accident (landing on his head as an infant) that made him that way. Perhaps the playwrights fell out of their cribs, too. Who else could create such a goofy, high-spirited and hilarious show as Scrooge in Rouge?
