When the Miser Met the Martian: A Sci-Fi Dickensian Drama
Channel: The Dickens Project
Date: 2020-12-14

Inventively reimagining Dickens’s Christmas classic via popular interest in interplanetary communication, Richard Ganthony’s play 'A Message from Mars' gave 'A Christmas Carol' a timely update. A product of the “Mars Mania” of the 1890s, the play is an example of very early science fiction arising, as its title suggests, from the same cultural impulses that inspired H.G. Wells’s 'War of the Worlds.' In the play, a Martian messenger comes to earth to redeem a selfish man. Through a series of visions, the Martian transforms this emotional miser into a more generous human being. The first successful dramatization of the 'Carol' in more than 20 years, Ganthony’s play established some of the conventions that would become common to adaptations of 'A Christmas Carol' well into the twentieth century. The text’s exploration of selfishness as a social ill and of the individual’s responsibility for the welfare of others is a timeless subject, given perhaps increasing relevance in today’s selfie-taking, economically divided society. 

Marty Gould is Associate Professor of English at the University of South Florida.