If having to pick favorites between the first season Ebeneeza and the one I saw last night, I would have to choose the former.

The venue of Charter Oak Cultural Center seemed better suited than the Kinsella Magnet School of Performing Arts in a few ways. That sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? First, the location is a little strange for an evening performance. This school is next to Colt Park, in a somewhat forgotten neighborhood. The instructions provided by Google are not accurate, so we ended up circling the area for some time before actually finding the true entrance. I don’t blame Hartbeat Ensemble for this. The Google directions are garbage and there are missing street signs. If this were done outdoors as a summer Plays in the Park, it’d seem like a more appropriate fit. In the daytime, it would have been easier to find as well. At night, however, when people might want to have dinner before or afterward without a lot of transportation-related rigmarole, this location does not work as there are no restaurants in a five-minute walking range. I would venture to say there are no restaurants in a ten-minute walking range either. If audience members were mainly coming from this neighborhood and arriving after eating dinner at home, this probably matters less. The concept of extending free art and entertainment to all Hartford residents is admirable, but I think finding appropriate venues in locations that easily lend themselves to being part of a whole experience is also important. The Mark Twain House and West Indian Social Club are much better venues in this respect.

The black box theater is a nice size with an adequate amount of seating, but the construction of the seating was atrocious. By that, I mean the chairs did not appear to be properly bolted down, and any time a person walked through the aisles, the noise was disruptive to the performance. I would have preferred outdoor, steel bleachers to this. Admittedly, I am not a fan of the recent trend to construct (or renovate parts of existing schools and relabel them as new) lots of new schools in Hartford when efforts should be placed on fixing the ones we have, but if we are going to develop new schools, we should ensure that the construction of them is up to par. The one thing that I would expect a performing arts school to have is a good space for performances.

The Charter Oak Cultural Center venue felt like a logical choice, as its historic structure created ambiance for the play’s time travel through Hartford. When one of the ghosts made his appearance at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, he came down the stairs, through the audience, making the performance more interactive. While it’s not impossible to do this in the black box arrangement, the element of surprise would be likely lost.

I did like the updates alluding to the Tea Party, Obama, health care, and especially the Hartford-specific references, such as the somewhat circular trajectory of Front Street. One thing that has not changed and still works is the characterization of Ebeneeza as a slumlord, whose property on Vine Street fell from moderate disarray to total shambles. Though a lot of lip service has been paid to the elimination of blighted properties in real life Hartford, anyone passing through knows that there is still much to be done. Ebeneeza holds tight to her property for more than just reasons of greed — she feels sentimental about it, as we see it is her first major deal. I think that the complicated nature of Ebeneeza’s crime is more realistic, as is the route of how she reached the status of slumlord. She began with good intentions, and quickly learns that it costs money to achieve her original goals. Investing money into the property becomes less-and-less of a priority to her, yet she still hopes that the property value will somehow increase. Being motivated by more than greed makes it more believable that Ebeneeza’s character can find redemption.

“The Future” scene seemed more confusing this time. I can’t place my finger on it, but I seem to remember that in the original performance, there was more narration through television news. This time, there seemed to be less buildup about the violence in the north end, thus, the chaotic future seemed almost random. Without giving away too much, the events in this scene do not seem logical. There is a parallel to other circular historical events, but not enough done to make this seem like a believable path. Part of me wonders if there was some failure of multimedia effects because the performance was a lot quieter than others they have done. There was less music, fewer voiceovers, and a few actual audio blips that I observed.

The quiet of the play made more noticeable the full-blown conversations that a group of teenagers near me were having. If anyone’s curious, the teens were annoyed by the accent of Marlene, Ebeneeza’s nurse. They laughed at displays of violence. I don’t know if this was nervous laughter (I hope!) or genuine amusement. After the show, when the upcoming performances were announced, they found it shocking and funny that the West Indian Social Club would be used as a venue.  To be fair, the male teenager in front of me was silent the whole time. Also, to be fair, when at the free choir performance at Trinity College a few weeks ago, there were many chatty college students, so it’s not just that Hartford youth are being rude and don’t know how to act when at live performances. Anyway, I really wanted music to drown their reactions out; I do not know if there was “enough” going on to grab and maintain the attention of the younger audience members. The teenage girls near me also ironically commented that the play had too much talking in it.

Something else that did not quite “fit” was the appearance of one of the carolers toward the end. While suspending disbelief as much as possible, I could not figure out if the adorable young caroler had knocked on the door or if Ebeneeza had run outdoors or what. Not a huge deal, but it seemed random.

There have been some cast changes since the original. Kevin DeChello was best as the ghost of Simon Hoffman. This incarnation of the character was more of a kvetch than the previous, who was zanier. Since the Ghost of Christmas Present fulfilled the clown-role fine, the extra silly character was not needed. A highlight of the play, for me, was some unplanned difficulty with lit candles and the resulting ad lib, which acknowledged a break with tradition in order to not “burn the house down.” Ayana Major Bey was versatile, able to convincingly switch between playing Francesca, an asthmatic young woman of Italian descent, to Marlene, a West Indian nurse with a hyperactive adolescent son.

If I can fit it into my schedule, I want to try to see this at another venue because Hartbeat Ensemble usually puts on polished performances, and I wonder if there were a number of factors like venue and technology failures working against them last night.

There will be free performances of Ebeneeza at the Mark Twain Museum Center from December 11-13th, and at the West Indian Social Club on December 18th and 19th. The performances at the Playhouse on Park in West Hartford are on December 26th and 27th and will cost $15/20. For more details, see the Hartbeat Ensemble website.