Charles Dickens’ rich and marvelous holiday story, A Christmas Carol, for so long a vital part of the New Jersey holiday entertainment scene, is back after its/our long battle with Covid. It opened last weekend after its Covid hiatus at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton and is once again a big, bright blue box of a Christmas present for all, wrapped in a colorful red ribbon and dripping in good will and cheer.
Hooray!
Everybody who has not grown up in a cave knows the time honored story of Mr Ebenezer Scrooge. He is a rich, snarling man who hates Christmas and loathes all of those who enjoy it, which is everyone but him. He does not like members of his family, treats his good hearted workplace assistant, Bob Cratchit, very poorly, ignores visiting carolers, does not see why any business is open on Christmas day, shakes his head about his past, and has no use for his, or anybody’s, future.
Then he is visited on Christmas Eve by a series of ghosts who try to show him that errors of his ways. It is a jarring night for the old man. He questions everything about his life, relives bad parts, and good parts, and wonders why the good people in it slowly, but surely, abandoned him. It is a jolt for him, and for us in the audience, too. He meets all kinds of lovable people that he has always shunned, such as little, crippled Tiny Tim, who seems headed for a bad end.
Director Lauren Keating has wrestled with the old time charm of A Christmas Carol, a difficult task, How do you turn Scrooge into George Bailey from the movie It’s A Wonderful Life? She does fine work, though and gets everybody in the play for a cup of tea to help her wrestle with mean old Mr. Scrooge.
She gets help from a large cast of fine actors, headed up by Kenneth De Abrew as Bob Cratchit, Gisela Chipe as Margaret Cratchit, Grayson De Jesus as Jacob Marley, Julie Ann Earls as the ghost of Christmas Past, Yoyo Huang as the delightful Tiny Tim, Addie Seiler as young Scrooge, Esther Chen as the ghost of Christmas Present, Matt Monaco as nephew Fred, Stephen Conrad Moore as the ghost of Christmas yet to come, Polly Lee as Mrs. Dilber, Rhea Yadav as Caroline and, of course, Dee Pelletier as the fearsome and utterly wretched Mr. Scrooge.
In the end, will Mr. Scrooge go straight and get out of his lifelong anti-Christmas rut? Will good nephew Fred continue alongside bad Ebenezer? Will the city dwellers who turn their backs on Scrooge at the start of the play embrace him at its end?
Now, remember, A Christmas Carol is still waking up from its Covid induced coma and has some weak spots.
The old play, that I saw and loved for many years, was a festival in old London, with a stage filled with people and little, lovable Tiny Tim, too, celebrating Christmas with large, busy groups of singers and bystanders. They walked about a stage that offered theatergoers a huge, very colorful neighborhood from nineteenth century London. This new version is smaller and tighter, with restricted action and a slower pace. This year’s version gets in all the action, but the story moves very slowly in some place and very quickly in others. The ghost of the past, present and future are all there, but not as scary as in the past. The play is, at some points, as frightening the old one, but not as many. The actors cringe, but do not seem as “cringy” in some places.
It is as fine a show as the previous versions, but a little different.
The result is that the play, very ably directed and adapted by Lauren Keating, is quite impressive, though. When I was a kid, one Christmas Santa brought me a Lionel train set, but it did not have the colorful bright red car I wanted. So what? I got the trainset, didn’t I? I luxuriated in that train set and never minded that the red car was not in it. When I saw A Christmas Carol at the McCarter on Saturday, I felt the same way, good play even without the red train car.
I, for one, just clap my hands, delighted that McCarter’s A Christmas Carol is back. It’s sort of a sign that, at least slowly, Covid is on the run. The holidays are back, Santa is in his sleigh, I can hear the footsteps of reindeer on the roof. All is, slowly, getting better for the state and the country.
Even crotchety old Ebenezer Scrooge would enjoy that feeling and, if given a good kick in the pants, stand up and cheer.
A Christmas Carol will be performed at McCarter Theatre through December 24. Click here for ticket information.
ALL PHOTOS BY MATT PILSNER
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