While the Company Theatre doesn’t perform “A Christmas Carol” every year, the Norwell troupe’s version of the Dickens novel has almost achieved the status of a South Shore tradition. This year’s production opens the day after Thanksgiving, with Michael Warner in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Warner, a Company Theatre veteran who lives in Quincy, has played Jacob Marley, Fred, and Scrooge in three pervious productions, and in an interview with the Globe, he talked about his approach to portraying the legendary miser.

Playing Scrooge was so much fun the last time I did it that I knew if I had the chance to try again, I’d do it.

It’s been 11 years since the last time I played the role, so it’s kind of hard to remember how I did it -- which is good. I’ve come so far as an actor and performer in that time. The fact that I’m older helps me portray someone who’s older. Even some simple things like the voice come a lot easier. I was able to try some new things, and the directors always try to give a new production some new twists. The movie just came out with Jim Carey, and we’re aware of that, and we want to give this play a little more animation than before and make it come alive.

To prepare for this part, I watched some of the older movies, and god knows there are so many versions of it, which is great because you can draw on so many things. Usually, the actors in the movies are much older and they can show how older people behave.

As a singer, I’m a natural high tenor, so I really have to go to the complete opposite to get the voice right. Everything about Scrooge is dark, and when he’s yelling at someone, for example, you really have to get that down-in-the-throat, scraggly, old timer type of voice.

One of the movie versions I liked in particular was actually more of a musical version, it was “Scrooge” with Albert Finney. I loved the way he would say certain things, especially after the transformation when he wakes up on Christmas morning. I’m a very visual person; if I see something I can really bring it to life a lot easier.

I like to believe there is some good in Scrooge. I just think that it’s so buried within him that he never wanted to think about it or worry about it. But deep down, there’s a kind of regret that he let this beautiful girl go when he was young, and he has these emotions when his sister died, but they’re buried.

So when he goes back and starts seeing all these scenes from the past, all these emotions start to come to the surface, and that’s what helps with the transformation. If there’s really nothing good in him, I don’t think the transformation would be as believable.

“A Christmas Carol” runs from Nov. 27 to Dec. 30 at The Company Theatre, 30 Accord Park Drive, Norwell. Tickets are $29 to $31 and can be ordered online.

By Joan Wilder

Every Thanksgiving for all the years of their marriage, my parents would get up very early to wrestle an enormous turkey into the oven so it'd be cooked before the sun set. They filled our holidays and every day of our lives with an abundance of food as though it was nothing – as though it was truly their greatest pleasure.

Mostly he shopped and she cooked, but they each did both. My parents loved feeding their daughters -- and anybody else who dropped by our house. My mother made dinner every single day, never a night off, never a "fend for yourself kids." My father knew good fruits and vegetables and drove miles to get chickens or chuck roast on special, keeping our freezer full.

From the time I had my first apartment in college, my father would try to send me back to school with a case of tuna fish, even though I'd fight him off. And for years after I left home, my mother would regularly tell me how to roast a chicken.

"Joni, you know how to make a roast chicken, right?" she'd start, and although I'd impatiently snap, "Yes, Mom," she'd continue right on instructing me.

It was always roast chicken, which must have been because chickens were cheap, simple to bake, and a great source of protein: if I could make a chicken, I'd always have something good to eat.

I guess she didn't know what else she could do to care for me off on my own in a world beyond her reach.

I understand that now.

Food can speak volumes.

It was the only language I had one day last summer, when out of the blue, my first, serious, post-college boyfriend came to my house in Hull to have dinner with my husband and me.

When I got his phone message, I didn't recognize his voice. But he'd said his name and the area code on the caller I.D. matched where he lives. I had followed his life from afar through a mutual friend, and knew that he'd suffered an unspeakable loss a while earlier. I knew that he'd left his law practice, bought a boat, and was on a month-long sail with a pal.

I called the number he left.

Our conversation was brief. He said he was on the North Shore on route to Hingham where some of his wife's relatives lived. He said that if the wind was good, maybe we could have a cookout at their house that evening.

"Or, we could have it here," I said, without thinking at all. We left it vague and hung up.

It was a Saturday, and my husband and I had just returned from a trip. I'd planned on doing very little that day, and suddenly I was maybe going to make dinner for a bunch of people.

But I couldn't mobilize. I could not get myself to go to the store for food, even though I'd (sort of) offered to cook. I didn't believe he was actually going to make it all that way (through the years or the nautical miles?) and be here for dinner. Besides, I thought, his relatives would most likely invite us over. He probably hadn't even registered my faint invitation.

The only thing I was able to do as I waited to see if he was really coming, was make a big pot of brown rice.

Years before, when Sailor and I were together, we were vegetarians and ate lots of brown rice.

Do you know brown rice? Good, nourishing, full of fiber and B vitamins brown rice? It still occupies a central position as a basic staple in my world: sort of like, air, water, and brown rice.

I shucked several ears of corn and thought about how close we'd once been. How sweet and smart he was: how hurried I'd been to find my way to something big and important.

I broke a head of garlic apart and slowly minced a large pile of it, as I'd been doing for decades. I finely chopped carrots and thought about Sailor's recent life. I couldn't understand how people live through some of what we live through.

I stripped the kernels from the corn and sautéed them with the garlic and carrots, then added the mixture to the rice. With some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil for flavor, it was my old brown rice salad.

At five p.m., when I still hadn't heard a thing I was so relieved -- figuring that the evening was off. Then, at six, the sailor's sister-in-law called from Hingham and somehow it ended up that everyone was headed to our house.

I raced to the store, got chicken (!), mesclun, and a watermelon, somehow managing to get everything together for grilling by the time I picked up the sailor and his mate at the A Street dock.

The relatives, my husband, and the sailor's friend were a fun, talkative group that made any awkwardness easy. Sailor was as handsome as ever and seemed well -- if somewhat dreamy and off on his own as though the sea had soothed a part of him away. He was hungry and ate a lot. Covertly, I watched his every mouthful, which included two big helpings of rice.

The food wasn't great, but the brown rice, my delicious brown rice salad, saved me from feeling embarrassed by the otherwise mediocre meal. And it also served in another way, there in the center of the table. It was like a stand-in for Sailor and me, a stabilizing force, a ballast: holding who we were, what we'd become, and the present moment all in a big wooden bowl.

The rice was my mother's roasting instructions, my father's cases of tuna fish. I was helpless to stop life from hurting my old friend, but I could feed him.

I offered brown rice instead of the heart full of words I couldn't utter – my sympathy over his daughter's recent death.

I offered brown rice.

I offered brown rice.

By L.E. Crowley, Town correspondent

A Scituate woman who barricaded herself in an Egypt Road house on Nov. 13 while a fire escalated inside will face numerous charges, including burning a dwelling.

Police Chief Brian Stewart said the woman, Colleen O’Neil Dunne, 44, will be charged with burning the 24 Egypt Rd. rented home she has lived in for several years.

Stewart said she will also be charged with malicious destruction of property, assault by means of a dangerous weapon, interfering with a firefighting operation, assault and battery on a police officer, and obstructing an exit or fire escape.

Scituate Public Schools: Coastal Holiday House Tour & Boutique
December 6, 2009
House Tour: Noon - 4:00 p.m.
Boutique: 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Get your tickets now and enjoy the 2009 Coastal Holiday House Tour! Five beautiful Scituate homes will be lavishly decorated for the holidays and open to the public on Sunday, Dec. 6, from noon to 4 p.m.

In addition, the Coastal Holiday Boutique at The Barker Tavern in Scituate is free and open to the public from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the same day and will feature 19 craftspeople and artisans.

Proceeds from the ticket sales and Boutique sales benefit all four Scituate elementary schools. Tickets for the house tour are best purchased in advance by doing one of the following:
Download the Ticket Flyer in the SPS Virtual Backpack.
Fill out and detach the bottom half of the ticket flyer.
Please send in a $25 per ticket payment.
Checks can be made payable to Scituate Elementary House Tour.
Label an envelope Coastal Holiday House Tour - For PTO Mailbox
Send in to school with your child to pass in through the child's teacher.
OR
Advance tickets will also be available for sale during Parent/Teacher conferences, December 3rd. Print and bring the form to save time!

Advance tickets may also be purchased at The Welch Company, Vinette Day Spa, Sylvia's By the Sea, The Inn at Scituate Harbor, and Pipeline Salon, all located in Scituate.

On the day of the event, tickets can be purchased at the Coastal Holiday Boutique at The Barker Tavern in Scituate for $30.

If you have any questions about tickets, please contact PTO volunteer, Judi Mansi at rjm4@comcast.net, or 617-388-5834.

Please go to www.coastalholidayhousetour.webs.com for more information about this event.

By L.E. Crowley, Town correspondent

Scituate selectmen have approved a contract to allow a private company to build a wind turbine on public land, a move expected to save the town up to $300,000 a year and reduce the town’s carbon footprint by 3 million kilowatt hours per year.

It follows Hull, where a wind turbine has been running successfully.

Scituate selectmen last night granted a 15-year contract to Solaya Energy, a Woburn company, to construct a 390-foot windmill on town land on the Driftway next to the sewer plant.

Officials said the move is believed to be the first in the state where town-owned land has been offered to a private company to build a wind turbine. The company plans to sell power to the town at preferential rates, and would earn profits by selling to other customers at higher rates.

“If it works out the way we think, let’s build more,” said Selectman Rick Murray.

Scituate Federal Savings Bank promotes five.

SCITUATE – Scituate Federal Savings Bank is please to announce that the following employees were promoted at the bank’s annual meeting.

Kevin M. McGowan, Commercial Lender, was promoted to Vice President, Commercial Lending.
Richard F. Pratt, Consumer Lender, was promoted to Assistant Vice President, Consumer Lending.
Marianne Howard, Branch Manager of the Green Harbor office, was promoted to Assistant Vice President.
Judith Rego, Branch Manager of the Scituate office, was promoted to Assistant Vice President.
Sondra Krieg, Branch Manager of the Norwell office, was promoted to Assistant Vice President.

SCITUTATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FUN NIGHT

WHEN: Friday, December 4, 2009
WHERE: Scituate High Athletic Wing
TIME: 6:30 - 9:00 PM
ADMISSION: $10 Per Child

A FUN NIGHT OF ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN IN GRADES 1-6

PARENTS- A Great Opportunity To Do Your Holiday Shopping or Enjoy a Quiet Evening Out!

Basketball - Indoor Soccer - Arts & Crafts
Volleyball - Bowling - Movies - Bingo AND MORE!!!

Pizza, Drinks & Snacks available for purchase!!

Activities are supervised by SHS coaches, teachers, parents & athletes
Sponsored by the Friends of S.H.S. Wrestling

By L.E. Crowley, Town correspondent

Firefighters and police officers sent to the hospital after a house fire last Friday have been released and are due back to work. But it's not clear whether any charges will be filed against the woman who apparently started the fire and tried to stop police from saving her.

“There’s some kind of mental health situation there,” said Fire Chief Richard Judge. “They don’t know what to do with this one."