“A CHRISTMAS CAROL”: Performances are underway for “A Christmas Carol.” Adapted and directed by Lauren Keating, the play with music runs through December 29 at McCarter’s Matthews Theatre. Above, from left: A surprised Margaret (Vivia Font) and Bob Cratchit (Kenneth De Abrew) watch as Tiny Tim (Caryna Desai Shah) receives a significant gift from Ebenezer Scrooge (Joel McKinnon Miller). (Photo by T. Charles Erickson)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

McCarter Theatre’s annual presentation of A Christmas Carol has returned to delight Princeton audiences. Working from her adaptation of Dickens’ 1843 novella, Lauren Keating again directs (assisted by Jaimee Harmon-Taboni), guiding a uniformly talented cast and creative team through a production that artfully juxtaposes the story’s darkest themes against festive caroling and dances.

Community involvement in the show — exemplified by the opportunity to participate in the youth ensemble — has long been an integral part of McCarter’s adaptations of the story. Keating extends this to her staging; as the show opens, carolers dance down the aisles as they sing to the audience. Immediately, we are part of the action.

Upon reaching the stage, the ensemble begins to narrate the story to us. The warm, festive mood is interrupted by the arrival of Ebenezer Scrooge (portrayed by Joel McKinnon Miller, who — along with other members of the cast and creative team — returns from last year’s production.).

Costume Designer Linda Cho dresses the embittered miser in a brown coat, underlining his difference in attitude from the brightly colorful (predominantly red and green) outfits, sufficiently evocative of the Victorian era, worn by the ensemble.

Scrooge dismissively rebuffs the dinner invitation extended by his nephew Fred (JP Coletta, who infuses the character with youthfully innocent enthusiasm) and Fred’s new wife Caroline (Lisa Helmi Johanson); and a request for a charitable donation by two solicitors, here named Cate (Legna Cedillo) and Mary (Maria Habeeb).

Ebenezer also denies his housekeeper Mrs. Dilber (Polly Lee, whose apt portrayal is brusquely matter-of-fact) permission to take Christmas day off to be with her family, but reluctantly allows Bob Cratchit (a joyfully paternal Kenneth DeAbrew) to be absent from work. As Bob’s wife Margaret, Vivia Font offers a memorable delivery of the monologue in which Margaret defiantly specifies the extent to which she is willing to drink to Scrooge.

Keating establishes certain relationships earlier than Dickens does, particularly that of Mrs. Dilber and the generous Old Jo (Gina Daniels). The latter character is a refashioned version of the novella’s rather more sinister pawnbroker Old Joe.

Composer and Sound Designer Palmer Hefferan provides a seamless transition in mood during these scenes. (Chris Frisco capably provides the music direction.) Joyous music gives way to eerie, ghostly sounds; we get the sense that spirits are watching Scrooge, and reacting to the way he treats people.

Miller, who currently may be most recognizable to audiences via his appearances on NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine and HBO’s Big Love, offers an interesting delivery of Scrooge’s lines during these early interactions. His tone often is less contemptuous than curtly nonchalant; rather than despising Christmas, as some other iterations of the character do, Miller’s seems to have grown apathetic toward it (though he still resents the expectation of financial obligation). The portrayal suggests that there is a part of Scrooge’s soul that already regrets his behavior.

Similarly, the ghost of Jacob Marley (Grayson DeJesus), whose arrival is marked by a trail of dry ice, is more mournful and anguished than menacing. Some of the character’s lines are delivered more conversationally, and with a bit less of an emphasis on loud, explosive vocal outbursts, than other iterations of the tormented specter. One gets the sense that Keating wants nuance to outweigh sturm and drang.

There are several interesting choices in casting actors in multiple roles. In some cases, the characters played by a performer are similar. In addition to Solicitor Cate, Cedillo plays the Ghost of Christmas Past, who is portrayed as serene bordering on impish, albeit at times chiding. (Perhaps the Spirit’s youthful demeanor is reflective of the point in Ebenezer’s life it is assigned to cover.)

Andrea Goss, who plays Mrs. Fezziwig, infuses the Ghost of Christmas Present with similar exuberance (seamlessly handling the Spirit’s dark change of mood at the end of its segment). In addition to Solicitor Mary, Habeeb also plays Belle, Scrooge’s fiancée.

Other dual roles are strikingly contradictory. Coletta is equally successful both as the innocently kindhearted Fred; and as Scrooge as a young man, whose partnership with Marley increasingly hardens his heart. Cameron Knight plays both the gregarious, flamboyant Mr. Fezziwig and the spookily silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Similarly, youth ensemble member Mikayla Irene doubles as an affably bemused Turkey Kid, and the eerie Want. (Rafaella Mousa plays Want’s counterpart, Ignorance.)

The members of the youth ensemble all deliver admirable performances. Ezra Cayton-Hodges depicts Young Scrooge as a character whose early experiences, particularly with an unkind Father (Alex Brightwell) who is sent to a workhouse) already are taking their toll. Cayton-Hodges’ scene with Alesiandra Nikezi, who plays Ebenezer’s sister Fan, is brief but memorably tender.

Ably rounding out the youth ensemble are a Caroler (Skarlett Rose Willis), and the Cratchit children: Martha (Addison Hall), Belinda (Zayda Knowles), Peter (Ethan Lee), and, of course, Tiny Tim (Caryna Desai Shah).

Scenic Designer Daniel Ostling often juxtaposes open exteriors against oppressively dark and secluded interiors. Scrooge’s counting house — a set within a set — is surrounded by the cheerfully bustling activity of outdoor London, established by the silhouette of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Scrooge’s arrival home is preceded by his front door rising from the stage — in a nice bit of foreshadowing, it is shaped like a tombstone; spiritually, he already has buried himself. The interior, like Scrooge’s coat, is a gloomy brown. Later, these oppressive walls fly open to offer a bright, open-air backdrop for the Ghost of Christmas Past, followed by an idealized, snow globe-like setting for Christmas Present.

Paul M. Kilsdonk’s lighting is particularly striking for a scene that opens the second act, in which we see Scrooge relive, in his mind, memories shown to him by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Hefferan’s sound design creepily distorts the Ghost of Christmas Present’s voice for her waspish quotation of Scrooge’s callous “Are there no prisons…?”

Both David Thompson’s adaptation, which McCarter presented through 2019, and Keating’s involve the plot device of a music box that is given to Scrooge by Fan. (Previously the music box has been contained in a snow globe; here it is wooden cube that opens to reveal a diorama.)

In a few places I miss the pre-2020 adaptation. The most notable example involves Fan’s gift, which, in a powerful scene, is destroyed in that version. I also was partial to a sequence in which children surround Scrooge and quote the “Are there no prisons?” line at him.

Nevertheless, Keating brings a talent for using music and dance to the story’s benefit. Emily Maltby’s joyful choreography is not only eye-filling; it advances the plot. A sequence in which the dancing at Fezziwig’s party is interrupted by the meeting of Scrooge and Belle, and then resumes with heightened meaning, brings the show into the territory of musical theater.

Keating’s adaptation deftly focuses on a theme of influences. (Notably, both Father and Marley repeat Scrooge’s “Bah! Humbug!” line.) The script is particularly interested in the extent to which Marley’s obsession with financial success, instinctively shared by Scrooge, steadily wrests the latter away from Belle’s kindness and moral center.

As a director, Keating adds an inventive motif. As characters that are projected by the Spirits discuss Scrooge, they look in his direction or even approach the place where he is standing, even though he cannot see them.

In a nod to the Victorian setting’s distant future — our own time — the curtain call is accompanied by pop music. Some may find this to be a jarring contrast with the traditional carols heard during the show, but the choice is not inconsistent with some of the story’s themes. Indeed, it recalls Scrooge’s promise to honor Christmas past, present, and future.

With its predecessors this iteration of A Christmas Carol joyfully shares a central theme: one generation giving holiday spirit to another.

“A Christmas Carol” will play at McCarter’s Matthews Theatre, 91 University Place, through December 29. For tickets, show times, and further information call (609) 258-2787 or visit mccarter.org.