Christmas Carol – Hibernator's Library

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching A Klingon Christmas Carol performed at the Historic Mounds Theatre in Saint Paul. In case you’re wondering: yup, that’s a thing. It is the first play written and performed in Klingon (preceding the Klingon Shakespeare plays). The playwrights are Christopher Kidder-Mostrom and Sasha Warren. Its translation into English, shown on a screen behind the actors, was by Sasha Warren.

SQuja’ is a cowardly money lender who not only refuses to take place in the yearly warrior festival of Kahless, refuses to donate money for orphans to be trained as warriors, and forces his assistant to work so much that he is unable to train his crippled son tImHom to spar.

But on the eve of Kahless, his friend marlI’, who is as dead as a “red shirt” appears to SQuja’ to warn him that he will be visited by three spirit warriors on this evening. The spirit of Khaless past, present, and future visit him and at the end of the night SQuja’ has gained courage to become a generous and brave warrior himself.

The play was quite funny and well-performed by our local Klingons here in the Twin Cities. The only thing that struck me as a little off was that marlI’ was as dead as a “red shirt” but appeared as a doorknob, like Marlee of the Dickens story – if you remember he was as dead as a doorknob. marlI’ should have appeared as a red shirt.

2012 Book 172: A Christmas Carol

Written by Charles Dickens, Narrated by Tim Curry

Reason for Reading: I read this for a Dickens in December readalong hosted by Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Postcards from Asia. Unfortunately, I’m a day behind on my post! This is also one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (sign-up for Team 1001 here).

Review (contains spoilers :p)

When grumpy and miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his long-deceased business partner, he gets the shock of his life. Apparently, a person’s job on earth is to walk among his fellow men and help them. For those who were too selfish to help during life, they are doomed to an eternity of walking among men while desiring to help, but not being able to. Scrooge is about to be given a chance at redemption. He will be visited by three ghosts. The Ghost of Christmas Past will remind him that although he’d had a rather dreary childhood, he’d had plenty of chances to make people (rather than wealth) his passion. The Ghost of Christmas Present will show him how happy people can be when they are surrounded by the people they love at Christmas. And the Ghost of Christmas Future will reveal a dreary future which may come to pass if Scrooge continues on his miserly path. On Christmas morning, Scrooge will awaken a new man – someone who knows how important it is to love one’s neighbors and to rejoice in their friendship. This is such a great story because it reminds us that wealth does not necessarily make us happy. It reminds us to look at the world through a different perspective. And, it’s pretty darned funny. 🙂

This well-known story was excellently narrated by Tim Curry…and I’m SO glad I decided to pay the extra couple of dollars for the Curry narration! His voice is soothing yet engaging at the same time. His voices for each character are spot on. And his delivery of the humor was so well-timed!