Whatever else can be said about rap/hip-hop music, there's no denying its relentlessly regular rhyme and meter. The discipline imposed by this form, as poets will attest, forces the rapper to express his emotions verbally, rather than through simple vocalizations or physical actions—but measured words, while useful for articulating anger, passion and defiance, are less fitted to conveying vulnerability.
These limitations presented few problems for the Q Brothers's adaptations of Shakespeare's comedies, where the obstacles to resolution are largely artificial—a generic convention also justifying the all-male quartet's forays into commedia-style drag—but when applied to tragedy, as in their "re-mixed" Othello, the dissonance became evident. Although the meek Desdemona would normally have been played by a Q actor wearing a mop-wig and squeaking "Moorish-man, you my squeeze," a delicate soprano melody line was deemed more suitable representation of the character.
The three tasks assigned Scrooge by his ghostly visitors in A Christmas Carol present a similar dilemma: Our hostility toward fat cats of all stripes ensures support of Scrooge's renunciation of materialism, and a fluttery Fred's same-sex marriage likewise renders welcome the reconciliation between uncle and nephew.
The plight of the impoverished Cratchit family, however, demands a more solemn tone if we are to champion Scrooge's philanthropic aid. Unfortunately, the Q Brothers have delved into the Tyler Perry canon for their portrayal of the patient clerk's kindred, with gags encompassing belching exhibitions and infantile cannibalism as well as Lil' Tim, whose character is defined by an endless list of maladies.
Serious issues—the injustice of denying insurance coverage due to "pre-existing conditions," or the sacrifice demanded of the scholarship student forced to drop out of school and take a minimum-wage job to help support her family—provoke laughter when the afflicted parties are stereotypical grotesques.
As if to compensate for this perhaps unavoidable flaw, the Qs sprinkle the surrounding material with provocative topical references: Rahm and Ari soliciting donations for the Emmanuel Foundation, for example, or Jacob Marley outsourcing business to Jamaica, only to be punished in the afterlife by rasta jailers and eternal reggae. Listen, too, for Scrooge's arrogant cry of "Chris-MY-ASS-mas!" to echo down the halls of Navy Pier for the next five weeks.
Copious visual spectacle also alleviates the stage picture of four guys standin' around yakkin'—Anacron's brief, but eye-catching, dance numbers and a grand finale that lights up not only the entire room, but the celestial DJ Supernova as well. The results may not be the stuff of Christmas classic yet, but certainly meets the criteria for jolly holiday entertainment.
