The Christmas Carol

By Lisa and Madeline Shin





On December 14th, the entire 7th grade went to Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell to see the play The Christmas Carol. The students had to go to the play because the ELA teachers believed that the Christmas Carol book contained vocabulary that was a little difficult for seventh graders to comprehend. The ELA teachers were concerned that if the vocabulary was too hard for the students, the students wouldn’t grasp the story. So with a little plotting, the ELA teachers were able to get a field trip to a Lowell theater.


When the seventh graders first arrived at the theater, they had to wait a few minutes outside before entering. Even though it was a little bit cold, the wait was worth it. Once the students entered the building, they were escorted to their seats. The stage was a little bit small, but the size let you focus on just the center. After some time, the lights started to dim. Eventually, the lights dimmed to the point where the room turned pitch dark. At that moment, the play started. An actor who was impersonating Charles Dickens, who wrote the Christmas Carol appeared on the stage. Back in the old times, many authors would act out their own books. However, in modern times, you would see multiple actors acting out the books, not just one author. Interestingly, this play followed the tradition of just one actor acting out most of the characters.


The actor who played Charles Dickens was also accompanied by two other actors. Those actors played some instruments to go along with the play. In fact, one of the actors played a total of 11 instruments! Moving on, the actor mimicking Charles Dickens started to impersonate the characters in the Christmas Carol book. His imitation of Scrooge was impeccable, and his depictions of different characters were pretty good too. The play retained most of the original story of the Christmas Carol-albeit a little humorous scenes now and then-and the actors were gold.





Overall, the play was amazing. The two actors playing the instruments had great skill and were very versatile. However, the only criticism that some students had was that it could be a little confusing at times. This may be because one person was acting out all the characters. Despite this, it was a great performance and most of the students understood the story well. We can not wait to read the book Christmas Carol!