A Christmas Carol is on stage through December 30.
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By Thomas Conners
From roles in memorable productions as Mary Zimmerman’s The Odyssey and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, to an Obie-winning turn as “The Creature” in Neal Bells’ Monster at the Classic Stage Company, Christopher Donahue’s career has taken him from Chicago to New York and Los Angeles. Now, sinking his teeth into that crankiest of curmudgeons—Ebenezer Scrooge—Donahue takes a moment to talk about his life in the theater.
Thomas Connors: Did you, like so many people, get the acting bug in high school?
Christopher: Yes, it was my experience in high school that made me begin to seriously consider theater as a life choice. I went to a prep school in New England, where I was introduced to the likes of Harold Pinter, Federico García Lorca, Samuel Beckett and William Shakespeare. We toured a production of Our Town around England as part of an exchange program. I played eight roles, including the tallest paper boy you’ve ever seen, and that experience of touring injected a sense of adventure into the whole shebang, which kind of hooked me for life.
Thomas: What inspired you to pursue acting in the early stages of your career, and can you share a memorable experience from that time?
Christopher: College for me was a bit of an intermittent disaster, so I took four years off and moved into Chicago where I spent a lot of time with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I also worked for the Circuit Court of Cook County in a flagship theater program, teaching children about the legal system. It was rather ingenious, turning well-known fairy tales into courtroom dramas, with the kids taking on the role of the jury. We rehearsed after hours in empty courtrooms in the Daley Plaza building, and it was very fun. It was my first regular paying job as a performer.
Thomas: As a working actor, you take on all kinds of roles in all kinds of productions, but you’ve been an associate of famed director/adapter Mary Zimmerman’s from the beginning. How has your collaboration with her influenced your approach to acting?
Christopher: It was evident in my last year at Northwestern, when I was a 28-year-old senior and Mary was a graduate student, that her theatrical vocabulary was something that suited me. The Performance Studies department, which introduced me to adapting literature for the stage, chamber theater and performance art, really gave me a new understanding of performance. The classes and productions offered, headed up by some amazing professors, were pretty much the only things that significantly sparked my imagination. But Mary put it all into practice for me. She has generously called me a collaborator, and I trust her and her team of designers implicitly. I like the feeling of finding my place in her storytelling and sublimating any sense of ego and just going for it as part of a group. Her work gives me the opportunity to be physical and graceful and assured, and I always feel like I’ve really accomplished something after performing in one of her shows.
Thomas: Let’s talk Scrooge. What was your approach to portraying this character and how did you find the balance between his grumpy exterior and the deeper emotions that drive his transformation?
Christopher: Even though the production is generally geared toward younger audiences, I maintain that it’s the adults that really need to take in Scrooge’s story. I glean more about him whenever I return to the book. His story is simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I think the play should be, too. It seems to me that is only achieved by making him instantly recognizable in his humanness. He is as infinitely human as the rest of us, and that is what the spirits reveal to him. What’s reclaimed is his humanity. But it’s also a rollicking, over-the-top kind of story, and hilarious. The supreme challenge is hitting all of these notes.
Thomas: After having previously played Scrooge at another theater, what drew you back to this role?
Christopher: Over 10 years ago, I jumped at the chance to do it—it was a wicked good time with some truly great people. More importantly, it was extremely well-timed, in that I’d just put my life on hold for a few years to devote my energy toward getting sober. That was quite a realignment, a spiritual reeducation combined with a fearless examination of my whole life, which is nearly identical to what the spirits work upon Scrooge. So, it was one of those rare experiences, for me, where the work was decidedly personal—an amazing opportunity to tell one of the greatest stories of spiritual awakening ever written, with my own recent experience fueling it in important ways. I still feel that way about it.
Thomas Connors is a Chicago-based freelance writer and the Chicago Editor of Playbill.
