New Adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ at off the WALL Prod.; Duq. Red Masquers Stage ‘The Seagull’ (Sun., 12/9/18)

1) The year is 1843. Charles Dickens is hard at work on a book he hopes will secure his reputation forever: the ponderous satirical novel Martin Chuzzlewit. In between writing serialized installments, he squeezes out a little novella just in time for holiday book sales. And wouldn’t you know, A Christmas Carol becomes the story that wins hearts for centuries worldwide, even in countries that don’t celebrate Christmas. There have been many adaptations and many Scrooges. Lionel Barrymore played the role on radio, in voice only; Marcel Marceau played it with no voice, in mime only. Now Pittsburgh-area audiences can see the world premiere of a new version featuring Scrooge only. Theater artists Mark Coffin and Heidi Mueller Smith have adapted A Christmas Carol as a one-person play in which Scrooge both narrates and acts the story, reflecting on life in London of the 1800s and his personal transformation from miserly greed to benevolence. The show includes multimedia. Coffin is Scrooge and Mueller Smith directs for off the WALL productions. 3 p.m. Performances through December 15. At Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie. (MV)

2) When Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1896, it met with a stunning reception. The opening-night audience booed so loud and long that Chekhov—primarily known as a fiction writer at the time—vowed to give up playwriting and promptly left town. Not so fast, Anton. The rest of the run turned out to be a success. A couple of years later the great director Stanislavski restaged the play in Moscow, to wild acclaim, and the rest is history. The Seagull, a satirical dark comedy about a bunch of artsy-literary types and their tangled love affairs, is now considered one of the plays that helped to launch modern theater. Duquesne University’s Red Masquers perform The Seagull at Genesius Theater on the Duquesne campus. 2 p.m. Ends today. Seitz St. at Locust St., Uptown. (MV)

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