Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs ‘A Christmas Carol’ Again

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ timeless classic, was first published in 1853. Dickens himself publicly performed the story more than 120 times before his death in 1870. At Theatre Wit this holiday season, Dickens is still going, and he is not happy about it. I was joined for this night at the theater by my friend Gino, who is also joining me in writing this review. We both agree that this inventive show, and its strong performance by its charismatic lead, put this high on our list of shows to see this season.

The show opens with Dickens stepping out to announce that his annual Christmas reading has been canceled—making room instead for a brand-new Christmas party with the audience. That plan doesn’t last. A decidedly uncooperative theater ghost derails the festivities, nudging Dickens to return to his customary task of reading A Christmas Carol, as usual.

Dickens ultimately acquiesces, launching into an extemporaneous version of the tale and seasoning it with lively historical asides that add texture and context. Still, his motivations for returning to the reading feel somewhat muddied. The pivot is framed as a response to the ghost’s controlling nature, yet Dickens yields to their obstructionism with less resistance than the title primes us to expect. The idea at the heart of this framing—an artist wrestling with a work so beloved it has escaped its creator’s control—is genuinely compelling. It’s a tension the production gestures toward, but doesn’t fully cash in on; more time spent in that struggle would have made the meta-theatrical hook sharper, and Dickens’ eventual surrender more satisfying.

None of this detracts from the truly stellar performance of star and creator, Blake Montgomery. He has a spellbinding and commanding presence, and he used it to great effect here. The strongest elements of the show were Montgomery’s improv and audience work. He has to be “on” long before the show starts, as he is bounding through the audience in reindeer antlers and handing out candy canes to everyone to get them in the party mood. Whatever our questions about the narrative structure, Montgomery flung himself from comedy to pathos easily and completely. Moments like breaking up with his fiancée (done with an audience member drafted for the scene) or Scrooge realizing the bleak future that awaits him were deeply moving.

At one point, the moment every actor dreads happened: an audience member’s cell phone went off during a dramatic monologue. Most of the time, actors ignore it by sheer force of will and keep going, but Montgomery skillfully blended the awkward eternity while the audience member fumbled for her phone with the speech to great effect. At the end of the show, he referred back to this moment as an example of how experiencing the unexpected together is part of what makes holidays unique and memorable. It was a great moment because it both dispelled any lingering embarrassment for that poor lady and her cell phone, and it was one of those moments you know will only happen once. It couldn’t be replicated if they tried, and that’s what makes it special. It takes a skilled actor to remain present in the moment, both theatrically and in reality to weave these two worlds into a compelling emotional thread.

Another element we really enjoyed was the parts of the book that don’t usually make it into the television or film adaptations. The Ghost of Christmas Past usually jumps right to the party at Fezziwig’s, but in the book they stop first at a young Scrooge left alone at school over the holidays. Montgomery uses it to give some insight into the character, showing it was not just his greed that made him so isolated. It was a great moment, and if anything, we wanted more of those moments from the book we didn’t already know from its countless adaptations.

Obviously, A Christmas Carol has been staged and adapted more times than you can count, probably second only to adaptations of The Nutcracker this time of year. Montgomery’s show is a clever way to play off that potential fatigue, and his performance alone is worth making this show part of your holiday theater tradition. We both look forward to seeing it again next year.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran and Gino Generelli

Presented through December 28th by Theatre Wit at 1229 W. Belmont, Chicago.

Tickets can be obtained at theatrewit.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting theatreinchicago.com.

Photos by Joe Mazza/Brave Luxe Inc.