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Scrooge is back on stage at the Bangor Opera House after an absence of more than a decade. And Kenneth Stack is playing Charles Dickens’ lovable curmudgeon for what the actor believes is the 24th time, with a relatively new script.
This new version of “A Christmas Carol” by Lavina Jadhwani of Chicago surrounds Scrooge with an ensemble of 11, including four children, who portray all the other characters and narrate the story like a Greek chorus. It was first performed in Minneapolis in 2021. Sunday’s sold-out matinee audience lovingly embraced the production that features local actors and visiting cast members.
The Penobscot Theatre Co. revived the show for its 50th season after theatergoers surveyed last season listed it as the top non-musical they wanted to see revived. They also said they wanted Stack back in the lead role. He last performed the show with Penobscot Theatre in 2020 for an online version during the pandemic.
Stack always finds new layers to Dickens’ quintessential “Bah, humbug” slinger. He gives a vibrant performance and convincingly portrays Scrooge’s transformation from hard-hearted businessman to considerate employer and generous soul. His encounters with the four ghosts are mesmerizing.
While the actors in the ensemble play many parts and a few instruments, those portraying the ghosts stand apart as particularly memorable. Marley’s ghost (Jorge Donoso) terrifyingly informs Scrooge of what awaits him after death if he does not change. Angela Bonacasa treats him tenderly as she takes him back to a Christmas of his youth.
The Ghost of Christmas Present (Monika Vijay) charmingly leads him to the home of his clerk, Bob Cratchit, to see how the family celebrates despite its many challenges. The creepy but silent Ghost of Christmas Future (Tina Munoz Pandya) shows Scrooge his lonely death.
Vijay is an immensely talented seventh-grader at the Glenburn School. She holds her own with the adult performers and gives depth of character to an apparition. Other students in the show are Maia Johnson, Michael Melia II and Miles Green-Hamann, all of whom have attended the company’s Dramatic Academy. Other cast members are Aaron Kircheis, Rebekah Novak, Alan Liam Estes and Jen Shepard, the theater’s executive director.
One technical star of the show is Kevn Jacob Koski’s costumes, especially those worn by the ghosts. They are delightfully dazzling and truly help bring the production to life. From the giant chains that bind Marley’s ghost to the white fur that envelopes the Ghost of Christmas Past to the shimmering green robe worn by the Ghost of Christmas Present, they are eye-poppingly gorgeous.
Despite that success and Scout Hough’s intense lighting design, the large but bareboned set, designed by Tony Adams of Deer Isle, seems at odds with the script. Scrooge and the cast at times appear to be dwarfed by it and lost in its vastness. It does nothing to illustrate the cramped and often unhealthy conditions in Dickens’ London that he revealed to readers of his fiction.
Jadhwani’s pared-down “A Christmas Carol” is better suited to a small, intimate space such as the Cyrus Pavilion at the University of Maine than the much larger Bangor Opera House. While the playwright uses much of Dickens’ language to tell the tale, having it told by so many different actors gives the dialogue a disjointed feeling. Having them as a group introduce each scene with a number as the show goes on interrupts the flow of the story and seems unnecessary.
Despite the flaws in the script, director Ethan Paulini, based in New York City, lovingly lets the story unfold and dusts off Stack’s years of being Scrooge to put the familiar character once again on stage to the delight of Bangor area theatergoers. Seeing Stack in the role again is as wonderful as reading Dickens aloud with friends and family around a warm hearth and an overly decorated Christmas tree or curling up in front of the TV for the 1992 film “The Muppets Christmas Carol.”
“A Christmas Carol” will be performed through Dec. 24 at the Bangor Opera House, 131 Main St. For information, call 942-3333 or visit penobscottheatre.org.
Correction: An earlier version of this review misspelled Jorge Donoso and Monika Vijay’s first names.