The Indulgence of Being Earnest: A Christmas Carol

Although eager to please and decent enough to wrap itself up in two hours, including intermission, the show is unsteady on its feet -- a hanging offense in a show that purports to be a musical. But it isn't always clear if A Christmas Carol 1941 wants to be a musical or not. Certainly the show's four original songs, by composer Henry (Dreamgirls) Krieger and lyricist Susan (Jelly's Last Jam) Birkenhead, are its weakest element.

The show is of interest mostly for the way its backstory conjures up a sad, little-remembered chapter of our city — and our nation’s — history: In the spring of 1932, in the depth of the Depression, a “Bonus Army” of more than 15,000 WWI veterans demonstrated in D.C. in the hope of receiving cash payments in place of the bond-like certificates they’d been issued eight years earlier, but which couldn’t be redeemed until 1945. They set up camp in the Anacostia Flats, their numbers growing for several months. In June, as Congress debated a bill that would have moved up the date when the vets would be paid, the Bonus Army massed at the Capitol. The Patman Bonus Bill passed in the House but was defeated in the Senate.

Then President Herbert Hoover ordered Army units under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in to remove the protesters from their Anacostia camp, creating the remarkable scene of U.S. soldiers armed with bayonetted rifles marching into battle against the prior generation of American fighting men, many of them starving. The protesting vets were tear-gassed and assaulted, at least two were shot and killed, and hundreds were injured in the melee. While history never excuses the crimes of the present, it’s worth remembering that deplorable mistreatment of returning war veterans didn’t start with George W. Bush.

This of course begs the question how topical A Christmas Carol 1941 aims to be. Of its many commercial attributes, this may be the most brilliant: Right-wingers who even now believe the invasion and occupation of Iraq was flawlessly executed and Kucinich voters alike can walk out of this show believing it endorses their view. “Heroes of the Homefront,” the show’s awkward, belated attempt in Act Two at a big production number, can't help but remind us that there really isn't any significant at-home participation in America's two current wars, both of which have now dragged on longer than our involvement in WWII. And the occasional soundbytes from FDR resound with the kind of moral leadership needed to build the consent of the governed.

This final production in Arena’s in-the-round Fichandler Stage, before it closes for a two-and-half-year metamorphosis into part of the Mead Center for American Theatre, has more than a few inventive staging tricks up its sleeve. Marley, Strube’s deceased partner in profiteering, rises from Strube’s filing cabinet, his chains reimagined literally as paper trail, the evidence of his perfectly legal crimes dragging behind him. When Strube has nightmares, the innards of his psyche are projected on the floor.

It may not be art, or even Art, but it's a diverting local spin on a hoary holiday warhorse. Your parents will love it.

A Christmas Carol 1941 is at Arena Stage through Dec. 30th. TIckets are available here.