And I’d actually been in “A Christmas Carol,” centuries ago, at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. I was one of those hapless extras wandering around in the background, warming our hands on non-existent coal fires or singing along on the easier carols. I think I had one line, something immortal like, “Hurray for Mr. Scrooge!” which indicates to me that at least I was around till the end.

Mr. Scrooge (Chris Kayser) spreads his new-found holiday cheer with housekeeper Mrs. Dilber (Bernardine Mitchell).

Turns out, the Alliance version is essentially about one thing. Or rather, one performance: Chris Kayser’s phenomenal Ebenezer Scrooge. I’ve been a Kayser fan since he made his debut (I’m almost certain it was) in the one-act “Bleacher Bums,” directed by former Alliance artistic director Kent Stephens. And I’ve seen him in numerous other pieces, from the entire rep at Georgia Shakespeare to last year’s stunning “Eurydice,” directed by Richard Garner at the Alliance. He is the heart and soul of this “A Christmas Carol” production, and I don’t care if he’s done it dozens of times before.

Perhaps that’s why the second act is stronger than the first. Besides harrumphing and grimacing, Kayser hasn’t much to do once the Ghost of Christmas Past (a beautiful but bland Courtney Patterson) arrives. Perhaps it’s the too-literal translation provided by David Bell. Or the fact they were facing a long haul of a four-performance weekend. At any rate, everyone seemed a little tired. A little on automatic.

Bart Hansard as the Ghost of Christmas Present. (All photos by Greg Mooney)

And I kept waiting for some use to be made of the inventively cluttered stage (identified in the program as cast-off furniture, clothes and what-nots from foreclosures, a timely note.) But everything picked up in the second act, from Bart Hansard’s festive Ghost of Christmas Present to the fragile touching fade-out — an embrace between Tiny Tim (cute Royce Mann) and the expert Kayser, that could bring a smile (or a tear) from even the most jaded “Carol” goer.

At center, Neal A. Ghant as the ever-optimistic Bob Cratchit.

As the ensemble grew into the spirit of the show, you began to appreciate how talented they are: Bernardine Mitchell and that great big voice; Neal A. Ghant as the ever-patient and optimistic Bob Cratchit; even enthusiastic understudy Derek Manson as Scrooge’s ebullient nephew. And so many others. Not a real clunker in the group, which I credit a good deal to the good eye of director Rosemary Newcott. The Alliance’s “A Christmas Carol” may rightly be regarded by insiders as the theatre’s annual Cash Cow, but close your eyes a little, picture some sparkling antlers and this perennial Cash Cow can be as magical as all the those eight tiny reindeer put together.

Cavalia is a dream of horses.

Black ones, white ones, bays, grays, buckskins, chestnuts, even the occasional paint. Their noses are nobly Roman or daintily dished. Their manes drape like fairy cobwebs and their necks are proud and powerful, like a steed out of “The Lord of the Rings.”

They are, in a word, breathtaking.

Sometimes, they race around the stage without saddle, bridle or rider, as unfettered as God made them. Other times, they’re like moving platforms, the flesh-and-blood base for some fancy stunt riding. A petite blonde dressed in New Age/ Road Warrior motley, commands a small herd to rear in unison. Or asks them to take a break, standing stock-still with their heads “casually” draped over another’s neck.

Sometimes they perform haute ecole  (you’ve seen Lipizzaners do it) or dressage (you’ve seen it at the Olympics.) One gentle giant, a Belgian or a Percheron, I’m guessing, merely canters steadily round a ring while a gaggle of fearless young men and women descend on him from the rafters. Or jump over him. Or balance on his back. Or balance on the top of the head of a rider who is balancing on his back.

“Cavalia,” which has been around since 2003 (though this is the first time they’ve gotten around to Atlanta), is the brainchild of one of the founders of Cirque de Soleil. In essence, it’s much the same thing — balancing acts, acrobatics, flying acts — but with equines in the mix.

Sylvia and La Grande liberte

What “Cavalia” has done so brilliantly is bring some New Age wonder to the sort of equestrian acts that have been around for ages. And the new approach helps us see things with new eyes.

Forty years ago, we watched some Barnum & Bailey showgirl in a tight spangled outfit raise a dozen or so horses on their haunches, and then, too, they were gaudily decked out with plumes and sequins. (And the act was called Liberty Horses instead of Grande Liberte.)

A band of brothers (show-wise, if not by blood), ride Hussar style, one foot on each of two horses and gallop at full speed around the arena. One even has the confidence — and showmanship — to take one of his hands off the reins and blow a kiss to a lovely young blonde in the audience. Again, this sort of risky stunt riding has been around a long time, but the “Cavalia” troupe brings a new energy to it.

Plus, they know most of us haven’t seen anything like this in years — back when we were young or we took our own young to see the elephants and the high-wire walkers. But with lions and tigers and bears to look at, the horses were almost second-rung excitement. “Cavalia” puts them back here they belong: front and center.

I’d eagerly sit through this two-plus hour entertainment again (and again and again) if I thought there was a single unsold ticket left. All but two seats were filled the night I went (a Wednesday). But just as I know a good thing when I see it (years of practice), so do the folks who created “Cavalia.” The show has been extended through January 3 (with a week off December 7-14). It’s expensive, but you won’t regret it. Or forget it.

I first saw David Mamet’s play when it made its Off-Broadway debut in 1977 at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel). At the time, no one knew what to expect from this upstart Chicago playwright who’d followed the sting of “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” with the let-it-bleed emotional violence of “American Buffalo.” (Which has since become something of a Mamet trademark).

The show was about all things theatre, 26 or so short comic scenes of two lives in the theatre: One older, John, one younger, Robert. They were played, respectively by Ellis Rabb, the flamboyant and imaginative founder of the A.P.A., which was, in its time, a kind of national theatre, approximating the sort of touring ensembles in England. Rabb also acted everything from Lady Bracknell to Hamlet. His co-star, Peter Evans, was a handsome actor who never quite achieved the marquee celebrity of, say, Al Pacino, though he created roles for Mamet, David Rabe and Arthur Miller. He died young, at 38, of AIDS.

The show is supposed to be a delightful backstage peek at the sort of repertory theatre community that was fading even back in the 1970s … the sort memorialized in the Peter O’Toole movie, “Venus” (for which he was Oscar-nominated).

Robert and John share more than a dressing room and some hilarious on-stage bits — spoofy excerpts from a certain kind of old warhorse plays that seemed to be continually playing somewhere sometime. They share lives, dreams, even, corny as it sounds, an enduring love of the stage.

The version I saw all those years ago was poignant, hopeful, bittersweet— all those spangled notions of a life in the limelight so many of us still hold dear (as the Old Actor in “The Fantastiks” says, “There are no small actors. Only small roles.”)

Oh, and it was very funny.

Apparently someone forgot to tell the Alliance that last part. “A Life in the Theatre” has been directed with a heavy hand and a distracted eye by Robert O’Hara. It is ineptly acted by Andre De Shields, who may have an impressive list of credits but never, even for a moment, inhabits the role of Robert. He’s not acting a ham actor with an endearing side; he’s just being a ham actor.

Ariel Shafir comes off slightly better, if only because John, as written, takes up less space emotionally or theatrically. Still, he could’ve been co-billed with De Shields in the program. (In photo: De Shields, left, and Shafir.)

Their scenes together, as we watch the balance of power shift over the years, have about as much snap, crackle and pop and a box of Rice Krispies, circa 1963. De Shields comes off as disinterested or uncertain. Shafir starts out well, then withdraws as their connection unravels over the course of the show’s hour and a half (with NO intermission; you’ve been warned).

The matinee I caught was, admittedly, not very full, which can be disheartening to any actor. And those who were there didn’t seem to get the theatre-centric jokes. But at least they were trying. The pair up on stage weren’t.

The best — Tom Key, Kenny Leon and Susan Booth — have come together and the result is akin to a perfect storm for the Atlanta theatre community.

Leon and Key (one the Artistic Director of True Colors; the other of the Theatrical Outfit where the play is being staged) have been here before. They played Fugard’s mismatched brothers (in ways that go far beyond skin deep) in 1998. Now the Alliance Theatre’s Susan Booth has been added to the mix, as director, and her gift for minimalist theatricality brings new textures to the production. (Photos by Christopher P. Kettrey.)

Written almost 50 years ago, “Blood Knot” remains a two-man tour-de-force. Set in a South Africa still under the racist sway of apartheid, the play pairs the light-skinned Morris (Key), whom, it is hinted, has “passed” for white, and his dark-skinned half-brother, Zachariah (Leon). For almost a year they’ve shared Zach’s one-room shack, Morris busying himself more or less as a “wife” (he’s the one who cooks, cleans and provides a soothing balm for Zach’s aching feet).

Think Felix and Oscar in “The Odd Couple” (the actors apparently do; at times, their playing is sitcom broad … a set-up, we learn, for the searing finale).

Further, with their talk of moving to a farm or their slapstick comedy with hats and chairs, Zach and Morris also recall another pair of Famous Theatrical Pairs: George and Lennie in “Of Mice and Men” and Didi and Gogo in “Waiting for Godot.”

Only, it’s not Godot Morrie and Zach wait for.

It’s Ethel.

A self-described “well-developed” 19-year-old, who likes “swimming and a happy future,” she’s looking for a pen pal. Initially encouraged by his brother, Zach writes back (well, he’s illiterate, so Morris does the writing). The problem? Ethel sends a snapshot and she’s white. And she’d like to come for a visit. Maybe bring her cop brother.

Uh oh.

Structurally, the play suffers from an overlong first act. I can see Fugard’s intention — to immerse us in the dailiness of these lives, to make us comfortable with their innate otherness, to fill us in, so to speak, on a past that is not so much shared as gnawed over. Still, some judicious trimming would help.

That said, the second-act pay-off is electrifying — whether it’s an ominous charade with Morris decked out in “white” clothes and attitude or Zach’s heart-wrenching plea to their absent mother, “I have beauty, too, haven’t I?”

There is a terrible beauty at the heart of “Blood Knot,” one that cannot be diffused by its slight datedness (imagine a pen-pal dilemma in the age of Facebook). Fugard, who is white and originated the role of Morris, can only know Zach’s pain from the outside, but he fully understands the cage of “otherness.” He could be speaking for every white in the racially mixed audience at the performance I attended when he has Morris say, early, on, “I’m on your side or I wouldn’t be here.”

But as the play progresses, we learn that being “on your side” isn’t nearly enough. That the “sound of whiteness” can be the obscene n-word and the sound of “black happiness” can be bitter and hollow.

As thickly entwined and, at its core, mysterious, as a Gordian Knot, “Blood Knot” resonates with sadnes
s and truth. And this expert production honors every nuance and numbing reality.

Editor’s note: I like these daily introductions. Today we’re honored to announce that Eleanor Ringel Cater will join Steve Murray and Wendell Brock reviewing theater for ArtscriticATL.  Eleanor is a familiar presence on Atlanta’s arts scene. In addition to radio and television work and a column for TV Guide, she was The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s chief film critic for 29 years.

Like a virgin.