Review: 'Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol' @ Chance Theater

Literate imagination underlines "Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol" in its Orange County premiere at the Chance Theater. A regional favorite, Tom Mula’s holiday play revisits the Charles Dickens classic from the perspective of Scrooge’s late partner.

Originally performed as a solo show, the play was reconfigured by Mula in 2001 for ensemble playing. A coffin dominates the ledger-logged contours of designer Christopher Scott Murillo’s set, as the company echoes Dickens by assuring us that Marley is indeed dead.

Thereafter, Marley (the valiant Bryan Barton) finds himself where a hardened misanthrope should expect to wind up. His time on Earth, as recounted in the afterlife records, gives Marley scant hope to avoid damnation. However, in tandem with the impish Bogle (vividly appealing Marisa Persson) assigned to Marley for eternity, a loophole emerges -- "Scrooge? I have to redeem old Scrooge? The one man I knew who was worse than I was? Impossible!"

Using means that recall "Liliom" by way of "Story Theatre," Mula sifts Dickens’ plot into Marley’s previously undisclosed history. Marley’s objective thereafter becomes not just Scrooge’s (Glenn Koppel) redemption, but his own.

Staged by Tony Vezner, the production is typically proficient, if overly measured, with resourceful designs, Jeff Brewer’s lighting very atmospheric. Although he reads rather young, Barton’s rubber-faced sonority serves Marley nicely, well attuned to Persson’s bounce and Koppel’s bluster. Alex Bueno, Jeff Hellebrand, Bryan Seastrom and the unaffected Rylee Montgomery complete a determined cast that gives the mélange of dialects and presentational techniques their full concentration.

It’s respectable work, albeit chained to a narration-heavy text that is a shade too reliant on reader’s theater strategies and somber gravitas. Yes, Dickens is dark, but sometimes the property verges on "No Exit." That still won’t prevent this worthy storytelling display from becoming an annual Anaheim crowd-pleaser.

--David C. Nichols

"Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol," Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. 8 p.m. Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 21. $30-$35. (714) 777-3033. Running time: 1hour, 55 minutes.

Photo: Bryan Barton and Glenn Koppel in "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol." Credit: Doug Catiller