Reid Farrington’s unique version of Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL returns for an encore season at Abrons Arts Center
Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Thursday – Sunday through December 23, $25 ($5 off through 12/1 with discount code DICKENS)
212-352-3101
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.reidfarrington.com
In a December 2011 twi-ny talk, Reid Farrington discussed his latest multimedia work, a rather unique version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, comprising excerpts from nearly three dozen television and movie versions, projected onto screens of varying sizes held by five moving performers. “I have always been obsessed with the idea of actually walking into a movie. There’s that image from so many movies (or maybe just one?) of a little kid putting his hand through a screen — I forget what it’s from, but that’s it. I think that’s the spark that led to this obsession of having live actors interact with screen images. That flexible reality is so exciting to me,” said Farrington, who has also taken on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope in Gin & “It” and Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc in The Passion Project. “I also love the sparseness of a projection surface,” he continued. “It makes the work look easier than it is. There are no wires in a projection surface, no gears, no visible computer, nothing. It’s a simple dance of light.” Farrington’s A Christmas Carol is back for a month-long encore at Abrons Arts Center, featuring John Forkner, Laura K. Nicoll, Erin Mallon, Adin Lenahan, and downtown legend Everett Quinton moving about the space as such Scrooges as George C. Scott, Albert Finney, Mr. Magoo, Alastair Sim, Patrick Stewart, Reginald Owen, Bill Murray (Farrington’s favorite), and others tell the classic holiday story.