Theatre North West is keeping its steampunk cards close to its vest. It doesn't want the innovative costuming for their version of A Christmas Carol to boil over before the live audience has had a chance to see it.
There are plenty of other people in Prince George, though, who will happily play steampunk show-and-tell. There is a whole community of those who love this branch of science fiction, because it is not just a story element. It is a do-it-yourself world of dressup for adults.
"Steampunk is what happened to all of the Goth kids when they discovered the colour brown," said Allan Dawson, a maker of steampunk fashion accessories and household curios.
"One thing that I really like about steampunk is that it encourages people to tinker and create their own works of art," he said.
"I'm usually working on a piece of jewelry at all times. I destroy old broken clocks for their bits and bobs. The assembly process resembles a game of Tetris, rummaging through your pile of parts until you find the perfect one. Wire weaving, and some super glue will bring any creation to life."
Teresa DeReis and her partner Steph St. Laurent, along with a few creative friends, founded the Prince George Steampunk group about four years ago.
They got into steampunk costume and attended the Calgary comic-con (fan convention) in character, which only enhanced their appetite for this aesthetic. They now have a Facebook page to help guide the local steampunk community.
"We really love all the different opportunities for creativity that steampunk allows," she said.
"There's costume making, jewellery making, creating characters and stories for those characters. We've had group events where we get together to make jewelry, costumes, and other creative projects. There's something very appealing about a lot of the Victorian aesthetic. There's also something very fun about taking traditional, stuffy, repressed Victorianism and making it more wild and crazy...sexy, even."
That broad and gutsy appeal was all over the cinematography of the music video for the song Come Down by Prince George/Vancouver singer-songwriter Jer Breaks. Film crew Norm Coyne, Mike Kroetsch, Chad Magnant and Jesse McKinnon took over the museum town of Barkerville to set the story of a futuristic time traveller come to the Cariboo Gold Rush to win back his displaced love. When you blend 19th century history with fantastical future fiction, the steampunk whistle blows.
"It's the collision of history and possibility," said Coyne who also implements steampunk into the annual event he co-founded: Northern FanCon.
"Barkerville is an unbelievable setting for steampunk. It comes right out of that era. Barkerville is all about Victorian-era industry and all those real-life historical elements from the 1800s, and it stayed that way frozen in time while modern technology got built around it. Barkerville could be like the world headquarters for steampunk."
Northern FanCon and Barkerville will share the night at the Nov. 28 Cougars game at CN Centre. Fans are encouraged to dress up in costumes - steampunk or other comic/sci-fi/gamer material - and Barkerville will make a special announcement at the game that night pertaining to the steampunk theme.
To see it in action, Theatre North West will present that Victorian-era Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol slightly reworked to include steampunk elements.
The play's director Heather Davies said there were more than 50 theatre adaptations, so she wanted this production to stand out for the audience. And what fits better on an Industrial Revolution story of time travel and supernatural discussions about human possibility than steampunk?
"I've made some changes, I made what I call a framing devise to move the play ahead seven years, where Scrooge finds himself in a moment to disclose to someone for the first time what happened to him to change his life, the visits he received from the three ghosts.
"And then we go with Scrooge back in time to be there in those moments with him, and for that I stick closely to the original Dickens text. Dickens was so talented at blending the scary with the lovely, pushing the darkness and the light right up against each other. He was a rock star in his time."
It was TNW's artistic director Jack Grinhaus who suggested the steampunk possibility.
Davies solidified the visual elements with scenic designer Brandon Kleiman, lighting designer Bryan Kenney, stage manager Jessica Stinson and costume designer Marian Truscott.
"Steampunk is the idea of the Victorian era as a transition point in history, but what would it have looked like if the transition went a different way," said Davies.
"What if steam stayed the dominant power source and wasn't supplanted by oil and electricity? What might the visual aesthetic be then?"
Davies lived and worked in theatre in England for 20 years, including at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Transposing a layer of theatre - the art of what if - over the rich visual realities and character realities of Victorian England are close to the surface for her.
Her family used to read A Christmas Carol out loud as a group each Christmastime, so she was tightly wound to get a shot at this project in Prince George - a city founded on the shrieking of train whistles and clanking of industrial metal.
A Christmas Carol lets off its steam starting tonight at the preview performance, then on until Dec. 9. Get tickets at the TNW website.
Tickets are on sale at Studio 2880 and CN Centre for the Nov. 28 Cougars game with its FanCon and Barkerville dual-theme.
