JSOnline.com Review
By: Damien Jaques - jsonline.com

Because Charles Dickens and his close heirs are not around to collect royalties, we have no statistics on how many Scrooges are performing on stage this or any year. New theatrical versions of "A Christmas Carol" sprout like weeds every holiday season. This year, "A Christmas Carol" at the Pabst Theater uses traditional Christmas music as a framing device. But we can be certain that few, if any productions of the beloved Christmas classic are as good as the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's, which opened in the Pabst Theater over the weekend. It is intelligently conceived, technically equal to Broadway production values, superbly acted and burnished to a warm glow. The Milwaukee Rep pioneered adapting "A Christmas Carol" for the stage with its initial edition of "Carol" in 1976. Now virtually every major city in the country has at least one production of the redemptive drama onstage annually, and Ebenezer Scrooge rivals Santa Claus as a symbol of Christmas. The Rep has used four different scripts and approaches to "Carol" over 32 seasons of mounting the favorite, and it tweaks the show in a variety of ways from year to year. Of course, the cast changes annually, too. The current adaptation was locally written by Edward Morgan and Rep artistic director Joseph Hanreddy, and it uses traditional Christmas music as a framing device. The songs soften the texture of a morality fable that can become awfully dark if allowed. We are now seeing the confluence of the Rep's wealth of experience with the Dickens story and the consistently high production level the company brings to everything it stages. Under Judy Berdan's direction, "Carol" has clarity, energy, economy and a technical gloss in costumes, sound, lighting and scenery that makes the Pabst a small Radio City Music Hall. All stagings of "A Christmas Carol" begin with Scrooge, and James Pickering inhabits him with such penurious gusto, he provides jet fuel for the entire show. This is not a pathetic old man, but rather a selfish skinflint who doesn't realize the extent of his social isolation until forced to assess his life. Pickering's precise and succinct style of speech - he bites into his lines of dialogue - establishes a tone of sharply defined vitality that is readily adopted by the rest of the cast. Brian Vaughn's relaxed portrait of Scrooge's nephew, Fred, is a soothing balm for the famous miser's abrasiveness. The actor's natural sunniness has never been used better. Mic Matarrese puts a dramatic charge into Jacob Marley and his ghost that will arouse anyone tempted to shift into audience cruise control. The local actor, back from three years of training at the University of Delaware, speaks and moves with an electric authority. Mark Corkins brings his usual dynamic presence to the characters of Mr. Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Jenny Wanasek and Katherine Strohmaier make particularly impressive contributions in the respective supporting roles of Scrooge's housekeeper and the happily tipsy Lucy, Fred's sister-in-law.