This is my Kabuki version of the Dickens classic reset in late 19th-century Japan. That setting is deliberate: Scrooge’s youth would be the Edo Era of samurai and shoguns; his present the Meiji Era, when Japan opened itself to the world; and his future the increasingly Westernized Late Meiji or Taisho Era, all visually very distinct periods. I originally wrote the show in Japanese for a Kabuki script competition by Japan’s National Theatre. That didn’t work out, but when a local English-language troupe took interest, I rewrote it in English. The show takes place on a Japanese New Year’s Eve, which shares many similarities with Christmas Eve in the West, but the producer insisted on retaining the “Christmas Carol” title for marketing purposes (the Japanese title is different). The production, performed in English by a multicultural cast at a central Tokyo theater, proved a huge success in a sellout run. The image above was created for that production. Here is a slightly revised version of that script.
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