Play adapter and performer Pierre Brault compares his multi-character solo shows to putting on differently fitted suits. Not only does each character don a distinct style, but there is no fourth wall separating the actor from his audience. Instead, Brault is solely responsible for carrying the entirety of his story. This holiday season, the actor brings his third iteration of A Christmas Carol: Solo to the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC), opening on December 10.
Pierre Brault as Charles Dickens. Photo provided.
Scrooge, Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas make appearances on the GCTC stage. The 90-minute show is adapted from Dickens’s original 1843 novella—with a twist: Brault enlivens Dickens’s storytelling through expressive narration, providing the backbone to the over 27 characters he performs.
“The challenge of solo performance is making your characters different from each other,” Brault says. “I create a physicality… and a voice for that character that’s unique. So, Scrooge doesn’t sound anything like Marley, who doesn’t sound anything like the Ghost of Christmas Present. In that way, I am able, by vocalizations, to separate the characters and make them very clear.”
The veteran performer of 25 years sets up distinct poses, movements, and phrasings for each character. With A Christmas Carol, Brault leans on Dickens’s own written descriptions. For example, since one of Scrooge’s bosses, Mr. Fezziwig, is described as a roly-poly Welsh man, Brault says he pops out his chest and speaks in a Welsh accent to transmit his jovial personality to the audience.
Brault’s version of A Christmas Carol: Solo hits the GCTC for the first time after showing at the Gladstone Theatre and via live stream over the last two years. He says he hopes the familiar and beloved holiday fiction will help bring folks back to theatre seats since attendance dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic. He tells readers there may be some unexpected scenes if they haven’t already read the novella.
“I think my favourite part of the show is the emotion I feel when Bob Cratchit is mourning the death of his son, Tiny Tim,” Brault says. “When I play Bob Cratchit sitting at the bedside of his dead son, it is extremely emotional for me. And I think for the audience as well, because most of them have never seen it. It’s also emotional for me because I have a son and so, as an actor, we use our own emotional well to draw upon when we’re playing certain roles.”
The family-friendly tale has staying power for a reason, Brault adds: the central theme of redemption.
“And that is a theme, a universal theme that everybody’s reaching for. Everybody wants a bit of redemption.”
A Christmas Carol: Solo is showing at The Great Canadian Theatre Company from Dec. 10-18. Performances run Tuesday-Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm and 8:30pm, and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are pick-your-rate at $15, $25, $40, and $55.
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