Bah Humbug!'s Sam Bob survives COVID-19—and sees new need for the retelling of Scrooge’s reckoning
The streaming collaboration sets Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in the Downtown Eastside
Coast Salish actor Bob Sam, who appears in Bah Humbug!, feels lucky to be alive after surviving a severe case of COVID-19
Bah Humbug!—An Artists and Community Benefit runs December 15 to 30 via Vimeo.
WHEN THE PANDEMIC brought the world to a halt, Sam Bob, like other in-demand actors, found himself mourning the loss of so many theatre and film contracts, practically overnight. But COVID-19 hit the Vancouver-based Coast Salish artist harder than most. In September, he began feeling unwell with chills and fever. By the time test results came back positive, he had to be taken to hospital by ambulance. What came next is a terrifying reminder of the potential seriousness of the disease.
“I was in a coma for nine days,” Bob tells Stir. “Before I went in, I was feeling really bad—really sick. I phoned 911 and barely remember the paramedics taking me out. I was fully intubated. It was pretty brutal, pretty harsh.
“It was touch and go there for a while,” he says. “The doctor told me I’m damn lucky to be alive.”
Bob, who’s recovering at home, is still processing the experience, which also entailed bacterial pneumonia. Some of the people next to him in the ICU died, wheeled away on gurneys silently at night. He took a taxi home from the hospital, and wound up sitting on the curb after the impatient driver tossed his walker out of the trunk and sped away; he was too weak to make his way to his building. He wishes he had gotten the names of the two women who stopped to help, putting their arms around him to lift him up.
He’s only recently gotten his voice back; having a tube down your throat for days on end damages vocal cords and leaves people in a whisper. His legs are slowly regaining strength after losing muscle mass while in a coma. He’s full of adoration for the nurses and doctor’s at St. Paul’s Hospital who “went above and beyond” to make sure he was comfortable. He has no time for anti-maskers, comparing the act of going out in public without a face covering to drinking and driving. He’s full of tremendous gratitude for his neighbours, friends, family—including four kids and three children—and members of the local arts community who have supported him in his healing.
Up next for Bob is an appearance in Bah Humbug!—An Artists and Community Benefit. The virtual performance comes from SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs, in partnership with Vancouver Moving Theatre and Full Circle: First Nations Performance. Streaming via Vimeo from December 15 to 30, it comprises a video recording of the 2019 live performance of the show and new, pre-recorded spots by cast members.
A hyperlocal retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the story is set in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Scrooge is a ruthless pawnshop operator and hotel landlord who displaces people through renovictions—until one Christmas Eve, when he is visited by three spirits.
Starring Juno-award winner Jim Byrnes as Scrooge, the show also features Tom Pickett, Kevin McNulty, Vancouver Moving Theatre’s Savannah Walling, and Margo Kane of Full Circle: First Nations Performance and Talking Stick Festival.
Members of St. James Music Academy Youth Choir sing in this adaptation, which also has an appearance by Indigenous activist, writer, and actor Stephen Lytton, recipient of the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award. Muralist Richard Tetrault provides a striking backdrop with images of ravens, alleyways, and the city’s port, while musical director Bill Costin combines seasonal songs with blues, gospel, and industrial rock.
Bob, who’s from the Nanoose Indian reservation on Vancouver Island, has multiple roles in Bah Humbug! He’s the Carver who welcomes audiences with a traditional opening prayer; he’s the Ghost of Christmas Present; and he also takes the spotlight in full drag.
Bah Humbug!—An Artists and Community Benefit is by SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs, in partnership with Vancouver Moving Theatre and Full Circle: First Nations Performance.
Last year’s performance marked the collaborative work’s 10th anniversary and was to be its grand finale. As a gift to the cast, the team behind it went to great lengths to make a professional recording, capturing a particularly smooth night on several cameras and Rick Etlin lending editing expertise. The recording was to be a keepsake. Jump to the pandemic starting to wear people down, and Bob getting sick, and the idea for something positive for the arts community—in the form of a digital re-creation for 2020—came to be.
SFU Woodward’s’ Michael Boucher, director of cultural programs and partnerships /Art 149, and Janice Beley, producer of cultural programs, started working the phones to make it happen, seeking approval from three unions: UBCP/ACTRA, Canadian Actors' Equity Association, and the Vancouver Musicians Association. (All proceeds support the actors and musicians directly, as well as Vancouver Moving Theatre’s Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival.)
Everything fell together, and the crew added videos of the entire cast sharing their favourite recollections of a decade of Bah Humbug! at the end of the show.
“They are as funny as they are touching,” Boucher says of the memories. “The respect and love for the project is deeply evident.”
For Boucher and Bob, the show’s meaning could not be more apt than in the era of COVID-19. The moral of Dickens’ classic, written in 1834, for anyone who may have forgotten, is that it’s never too late to become a kind and caring person who treats others with respect.
“In the immortal words of Dickens, if we can’t find compassion in this crisis, what are we?” Boucher says. “There is not a better time to have done this. If we don’t keep our society together, if we don’t reach out to one another and find a sense of humanity and compassion, there isn’t a future.”
Bob says that in playing the Ghost of Christmas Present, he drew upon tragic real-life circumstances to imbue the character with emotion. He thought of missing and murdered Indigenous women and students in residential schools. For Bob, they’re part of the story.
“In the original Scrooge, society needs to remember to help those who are in crisis,” he says. “That’s what I feel.
“If somebody can watch this and get what we’re trying to say about the nature of your relationship with your loved ones and your family and your community—and how to be a responsible community member and how to look out for those less fortunate—that’s what I hope for,” he says. “Those messages still come through in the video performance. Culture is our medicine, and we need it.”
Jim Byrnes plays Scrooge in Bah Humbug!—An Artists and Community Benefit.
For more information about Bah Humbug!—An Artists and Community Benefit, visit SFU Woodward’s.
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