“God bless us … EVeryone!”

Yesterday I drove many many miles to see my dear old friend Brett perform his one-man version of Christmas Carol. He does all of the characters, and he does it as though he is Charles Dickens himself – Dickens used to perform his work in this manner all the time. Brett has been performing at the Dickens Day festival in this one particular town for 10 years now, but this is the first time I have gone. I drove up with Liz and Joey. And then there we were, 2 and a half hours out of the city (in other words: another WORLD) … hanging out in this massive Waiting for Guffman-ish town hall, where there was a Santa who had bright blue eyes above his beard and who appeared to be coming off a massive bender. I said to him brightly, “Hi Santa, how are you?” and he mumbled, in a Tony Soprano accent, “How you doin'”. Very funny.)

Brett is a star in this town – they look forward to his yearly visit – they bring the kids, they all gather in the local Civil War museum, on the top floor of the Town Hall, and watch his performance of Christmas Carol. It was a great atmosphere – surrounded by pictures and relics of all the Civil War veterans of this one small Connecticut town, and there was Brett, up in front of us, CREATING this story for us.

He was so wonderful, and so funny, and so inventive that I was rather beside myself the entire time. My heart swelled up like the Grinch’s, watching my friend shine like that, and I was a weepy mess.

He played all the characters, and they weren’t just caricatures – they came to life, fully, they each had a different walk, voice, attitude – and yet the entire thing didn’t feel precious, or actor-ish – It felt like an afternoon of STORYTELLING, which is, I’m sure, what Dickens would have wanted. The man knew how to tell a tale that rollicked along. There he was – as crotchety Scrooge, there he was as Fezziwig, there he was as Tiny Tim, there he was as the sorrowful Belle (Scrooge’s sweetheart as a young man) giving the engagement ring back, there he was as the ghost of Marley (wailing and clanking his chains) … And it never once stopped moving, and it completely lifted itself off the page. It didn’t sound like it had EVER been a book. It seemed like it must have been born as a story told round a family fire.

I was mostly moved by the faces of the little kids in the audience, perhaps hearing the tale for the first time. Brett includes the kids, talks right at them … (it is, after all, a ghost story) – and there was one little boy in the front row, he must have been about 7? He reminded me of Cashel. A sweet little face, he was sitting with his grandmother.

And when Brett acted out the part when Marley’s ghost comes up the stairs … and he did the sounds of Marley’s chains clanking, and he did Scrooge sitting in bed, listening, terrified … I glanced over at the wee sweet boy, and saw his eyes goggle open, his mouth drop open, he was huddled against his grandmother’s side … He could not take his eyes off Brett, and he looked filled with delicious terror.

That kind of shite makes me cry. Sweet little boy, staring up at my friend, and also … the art of telling a story, and how important it is, how we, as a human race, really can’t live without it.

I was really proud of Brett, and I also was really proud of myself and Liz and Joey for getting our acts together and hauling ass ALL THE WAY INTO CONNECTICUT in order to see our friend shine.