Goodman Theatre’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ features magnificent new Scrooge, peerless cast

See the same play annually for 30 years, and it’s a safe bet it’ll eventually seem stale. That goes double for a period piece like the 1840s-set “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens’ iconic ghost story of wealth-hoarder Ebenezer Scrooge and the four ghosts who facilitate his evolution from miserly misanthrope to open-hearted beneficence.

Jessica Thebus’ directorial vision, an ensemble cast that knows its business, and a current economic climate that feels like a second Gilded Age, combine to make the Goodman Theatre’s 47th annual production of Tom Creamer’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” anything but stale. And I assert this as someone who hasn’t missed the seasonal production since 1994.

Key to its success: Christopher Donahue, who steps into Scrooge’s shoes in the wake of Larry Yando’s 16-season run in the part. Donahue is remarkable, moving from malevolent to benevolent in an epic arc that spans the emotional spectrum. Thebus, helming the production for the fourth season, tweaks the production to reveal new layers, while honoring the traditions that make it a Yuletide treasure.

The plot is well-worn: Wealthy Ebenezer Scrooge has essentially cut himself off from humanity. To him, Christmas is a frivolous day when the poor impoverish themselves further, while responsible rich people like himself are forced to pay for it. Those who can’t afford adequate food and healthcare should just die, the better to “decrease the surplus population,” he insists. It falls to his dead business partner Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to show Scrooge the error of his ways.

Thebus starts with a cold open — a narrator (Kate Fry) emerging in a pool of light, cooing a lullaby. The song builds as the scene morphs into a bustling street scene and then a crowded family dinner. At the peak of the merriment, Fry, who makes the exposition captivating throughout, delivers a portentous “Once upon a time,” and the stage shifts to Scrooge’s counting house, its proprietor hunched over his ledgers like an angry hyena while his nearly frozen clerk Bob Cratchit (an empathetic Anthony Irons) tries to sneak coal onto the chintzy fire. It’s Christmas Eve. Scrooge is about to have a long night.

The first of the visiting ghosts is Marley (a ferocious William Dick) who has emerged over the years from doorways, portraits, floorboards and Scrooge’s very bed covers. Thebus finds a new spot for Marley to clank forth, shackled by chains that threaten to rip him apart as he howls with purgatorial anguish.

The literally incandescent Ghost of Christmas Past (Lucky Stiff channeling both Diana, the moon goddess, and Pan, the half-hooved god of the wilds) flies Scrooge to formative scenes from his youth including an all-but abandoned boarding school yard and the counting house where he was apprenticed to a deaf Mr. Fezziwig (Robert Schleifer, utilizing American Sign Language and voiced by Mark Bedard). There’s a rambunctious interlude of joy during Fezziwig’s Christmas party, when the ensemble romps through reels and waltzes while singing carols in no less than seven languages, including ASL.

Schleifer, who is deaf, is an expressive delight in his ninth season of “A Christmas Carol,” making Fezziwig’s ebullience positively infectious. But the joy is as substantial as a mirage for Scrooge. His tour of Christmases Past ends with his heart curdled and hardened.

Bri Sudia’s Ghost of Christmas Present — the ghost a symbol for Father Christmas and Christianity as a whole — brings the story smack into the moment. In Present’s lament — “There are some upon this Earth of yours, who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill will, hatred, envy, bigotry and selfishness in our name” — Sudia unleashes a torrent of sorrow and rage powerful enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Ditto a later scene, where she sets the skeletal specters Ignorance and Want on Scrooge: “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,” she intones. It’s as if she’s prophesying.

When the faceless Ghost of Christmas Future (Amira Danan) arrives — accompanied by a flock of winged creatures flapping and shrieking like familiars — Scrooge is confronted with the ultimate nightmare: His death as a source of celebration, his life destined to be quickly forgotten. Redemption, when it comes, is hard-won.

Crucial to the production’s success is music director Malcolm Ruhl (in his 20th season with the show), whose four-piece onstage micro-orchestra stitches the scenes together and intensifies the atmosphere for the story’s many moods.