Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol 

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Through December 16

RECOMMENDED 

Suppose you’re a veteran theater goer, one without children to entertain on the holidays. Why might you attend yet another staged production of A Christmas Carol, that inveterate seasonal favorite playing at countless venues throughout the country year in and year out? Adapted from Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella, it’s stuffy and bathetic and you’ve doubtless seen it one too many times already. Bah, humbug, take a pass.

Or maybe not. In fact, you might reconsider if you have the opportunity to catch Jefferson Mays’ solo tour-de-force adaptation at the Geffen Playhouse through this coming weekend.

Lest you’re unfamiliar with his pedigree, Mays won a Tony for Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife in 2004, and in 2013 garnered acclaim for his comic turn in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, where he played 13 characters.

The current production, a world premiere, is an adaptation by Mays, Susan Lyons and director Michael Arden. It’s a ghost story in the fullest sense of the word, in which Mays’ virtuoso performance is the centerpiece of a stunning display of spooky stagecraft that fuses set (Dane Laffrey), sound (Joshua D. Reid), and lighting (Ben Stanton), plus special effects, to render a vivid and haunting tale about an ill-spirited man who’s transformed through a series of harsh but uplifting lessons.

The show opens in darkness, followed by a loud startling sound and then Mays appears — a shrouded presence on stage as he lights several small candles around the venue, casting an odd inky-green hue over the set’s old-fangled fireplace.

The story proceeds, with Mays undertaking all roles, including the narrator. Each crystal-clear transition in character is underscored by a shift in lighting that spotlights his fluid expressions — grimacing, fright-filled or threatening as the case may be — as Mays renders the various specters that haunt Scrooge, and Scrooge himself.

In scene changes, Laffrey’s mobile set pieces manifest, as if magically, out of the darkness, as with the appearance of a towering staircase that revolves into view. At other times an enveloping mist appears to emanate from — who knows where? During scenes from Christmas Past, designer Lucy Mackinnon’s projections conjure images of festive partyers, inside a warm, brightly-lit room, that the marginalized Scrooge can only observe through the frosted window, his loneliness palpable.

Brilliant and arresting the stagecraft surely is, yet it’s the power emanating from the performer that makes the story coalesce into an emotional experience for the viewer. Behind the booming voice and the quicksilver transformations is an interpretive master, translating the most elemental human stirrings into a fine art.

Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Dec. 16. (310) 208-5454 or https://geffenplayhouse.org. Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.