“A Christmas Carol,” the play, weighs in during the holidays as the top theater choice, “The Nutcracker” running second, for American families.
Based on the novella by Charles Dickens, the play comes in all sizes and shapes. It can be as eerie as the film versions, my favorite being the 1984 movie in which George C. Scott is a mean-spirited Ebenezer Scrooge for the ages.
It can be smarmy and over-Victorianized, with text lines pillowed in stage sound that eclipses the story entirely, or a bright musical that runs with cozy tradition and stage pictures handsome as Currier & Ives cards.
Center Repertory Company’s 2023 production directed by Scott Denison (who’s been at the job since the 1990s) and choreographed by Jennifer Perry at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek is clearly a crowd pleaser. A snowy village square in the country (vivid designs by Kelly Tighe) can seem so full of choristers, sledders, skaters and buskers that the words fly off into the wings at times.
The whimsy comes through, though, particularly in the scene where Scrooge remembers his love for and loss of Belle, or when Tiny Tim waits for his father Bob Cratchit, wonderfully acted by Anderson Moore (filling in for Michael Patrick Wiles), or the vibrant dance organized by the super zany Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig (Michael McCarty and Jeanine Perasso).
There is no mistaking the Scrooge of Michael Ray Wisely — he is a mean grump.
His reaction to the ghost of Marley (Jeff Draper) is chilling, and even though Kerri Shawn’s winsome Ghost of Christmas Past tugs a little at his heartstrings, his “bah humbugs!” stop everybody in their tracks.
There is magic in this “Christmas Carol” — get out the overcoats and long woolen scarves and go.
Center Repertory Company’s “A Christmas Carol” continues through Dec. 21 at Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. Tickets are $45 to $70 at lesherartscenter.org.