The Mixed Blood Theater, a nationally acclaimed theater has picked up an odd play for this holiday season: A Klingon Christmas Carol. Here’s the blurb on their website:
Scrooge has no honor, nor any courage. Can three ghosts help him to become the true warrior he ought to be in time to save Tiny Tim from a horrible fate? Performed in the Original Klingon with English Supertitles, and narrative analysis from The Vulcan Institute of Cultural Anthropology.
The classic Dickensian tale of ghosts and redemption adapted to reflect the Warrior Code of Honor and then translated into tlhIngan Hol (That’s the Klingon Language).
A co-production of Commedia Beauregard and the IKV RakeHell of the Klingon Assault Group.
I estimate the potential audience of Klingon-language theater in 2009 in the Twin Cites to be about 37 people (assuming a few can be drawn in from the colleges in St. Cloud and Mankato). Furthermore, I suspect at least 12 of those 37 are already involved in the production in one way or another.
I wish the Mixed Blood all the best, but if this is their way of trying to tap into a new/different audience, they may have been better served aiming for a slightly larger target than the sub-sub-pop-culture that is Klingon speaking Star Trek fans.
BTW, the picture doesn’t have much to do with anything, other than a Hello Kitty Klingon is pretty ridiculous (but possibly entertaining).