Sporting a giant, nasty afro and a t-shirt that says “Less Humans More Robots,” an audience member could suspect that 2006 Andy Kaufman award-winner Reggie Watts is about to push the limits of avant-garde comedy—in reality, he’s probably about to push the limits of his vocal chords. While primarily considered more of a “performer” than a “stand-up comedian,” Watts does delve into a bit of dialogue and absurdist punch lines; one story, about pushing his grandfather off a balcony and to his death, ends with Watts saying his grandfather, “didn’t make a sound, which showed his commitment to silence.” But Watts’ best attribute is one killer set of pipes, boasting a vocal range of ten octaves (we’ll assume some hyperbole involved) and the ability to imitate a whole slew of instruments and sound effects, making him like a more likable version of that “Larvell ‘Motor Mouth’ Jones” character from “Police Academy.” Many of Watts’ jams—often performed live through layering loops of his vocal beatboxes and basslines—fall comfortably in the “just really damn impressive” category, even with little or no actual jokes involved. But when the comedy does come paired with Watts’ bewilderingly high musical talent, it’s just that more effective. Watch his CollegeHumor.com video “What About Blowjobs?” to see the most impressive performance of the lyrics “Cradle the balls!” ever conceived. (Andy Seifert)

January 9 at Lakeshore Theater. 3175 N. Broadway, (773)472-3492

You better believe if there’s something wrong in the fabric of society, Chicago’s own Dwayne Kennedy is gonna try to wrap his head around the problem. His brand of social observational comedy refuses to shy away from any controversial topics of interest—9/11 (which he says cramped his theory that “the white man is the devil”), racism and slaves are all free to be comedically bandied about. What’s just as appealing about Kennedy’s routine is that after the tension is released and the laughter subsides, some thoughtful and serious commentary exists. For instance, Kennedy insists that all races will remain edgy with one another unless some sort of dialogue occurs and we start asking questions of one another. “You could say like, ‘Hey white man, how come you’re so tense and afraid?’ Kennedy says. “’And then he could say, ‘Hey black man, how’d you get into my apartment?’ Then the healing begins.” (Andy Seifert)

January 13-14, 16-18 at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.

Top 5 Shows

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“A House with No Walls,” Timeline Theatre

“The Glass Menagerie,” Steppenwolf Theatre

“No Darkness Round My Stone,” Trap Door Theatre

“The Birthday Party,” Signal Theater

—Monica Westin

Top 5 Shows

“Jon,” Collaboraction

“A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,” A Red Orchid

“Be More Chill,” Griffin Theatre

“Men of Tortuga,” Profiles

“Picked Up,” Neo-Futurists

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Theatrical Experiences

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Columnibus,” Raven Theatre

“As You Like It,” Writers’ Theatre

“The Comedy of Errors,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater

“Romeo y Julieta” (Staged Reading), Chicago Shakespeare Theater/Shakespeare in Español

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Guilty Pleasures

“Jarred: A Hoodoo Comedy” by Tanya Saracho, Teatro Luna

“Speech and Debate” by Stephen Karam, ATC

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl, Steppenwolf

“The Little Dog Laughed” by Douglas Carter Beane, About Face Theatre

“After Ashley” by Gina Gionfriddo, Stage Left Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 New Plays

“Kita y Fernanda” by Tanya Saracho, 16^th Street Theater

“The U.N. Inspector” by David Farr and James Sherman, Next Theatre

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl, Steppenwolf Theatre

“Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” by Yussef El Guindi, Silk Road Theatre Project

“Superior Donuts” by Tracy Letts, Steppenwolf Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

 Top 5 Revivals

“The Maids,” Writers’ Theatre

“The Lion in Winter,” Writers’ Theatre

“Requiem for a Heavyweight,” Shattered Globe

“Plaza Suite,” Eclipse Theatre Company

“The Birthday Party,” Signal Ensemble Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Play Revivals

“Our Town,” Hypocrites

“The Lion in Winter,” Writers Theatre

“Requiem for a Heavyweight,” Shattered Globe

“Journey’s End,” Griffin

“M Butterfly,” BoHo

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Memorable Productions by a Smaller Theatre Troupe

“Multi-Purpose Doom,” Sandbox Theatre Project

“The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler,” Dog & Pony

“Termen Vox Machina,” Oracle Productions

“On My Parents’ 100^th Wedding Anniversary,” Side Project

“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” (original mounting), Gift Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Directors

Ann Filmer for “Kita y Fernanda,” 16^th Street Theater

Charles Newell for “Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

Sean Graney for “Edward II,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater

William Brown for “As You Like It,” Writers’ Theatre

Greg Kolack for “Columbinus,” Raven Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Musicals

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Grey Gardens,” Northlight Theatre

“Tell Me On A Sunday,” Bailiwick Theater

“The Full Monty,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

“All Shook Up,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 New Musicals

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Grey Gardens,” Northlight Theatre

“Songs for a New World,” Porchlight

“The Ballad of Emmett Till,” Goodman Theatre

“I Am Who I Am: The Story of Teddy Pendergrass,” Black Ensemble Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Musical Revivals

“Tell Me on a Sunday,” Bailiwick Theater

“Sweet Charity,” Drury Lane Oakbrook

“1776,” Signal Ensemble

“Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Lovers of the Night,” Theo Ubique

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Circle Theatre

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Worst Musicals

“Shout! The Mod Musical,” Drury Lane Water Tower

“Avenue Q,” Broadway in Chicago

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Russian on the Side,” Royal George Theater

“Gutenberg! The Musical,” Royal George Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Worst Musicals

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“The Kid from Brooklyn,” Mercury Theater

“Gutenberg! The Musical!,” Royal George Theatre

“Jekyll & Hyde—The Musical,” Bohemian Theatre Ensemble

“Sweeney Todd,” Broadway in Chicago

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Operas

“Manon,” Lyric Opera

“The Abduction From the Seraglio,” Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia

“Lulu,” Lyric Opera

“Porgy and Bess,” Lyric Opera (second cast)

“Don Giovanni,” Chicago Opera Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Productions of Shakespeare

“As You Like It,” Writers Theatre

“Comedy of Errors,” Chicago Shakespeare

“Much Ado About Nothing,” First Folio

“Merchant of Venice,” Boho

“Twelfth Night,” City Lit

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Touring Shows

“Saint Joan,” Shaw Festival Canada, Chicago Shakespeare

“Cirque du Soleil: Kooza,” United Center

“The Drowsy Chaperone,” Broadway in Chicago

“My Fair Lady,” National Theatre London, Broadway in Chicago

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” Broadway in Chicago

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Holiday Shows

“The Christmas Schooner,” Bailiwick Theater

“A Dublin Carol,” Steppenwolf Theatre

“A Christmas Carol,” Writers Theatre

“Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular,” Rosemont Theatre

“The Seafarer,” Steppenwolf Theatre

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Comedy Shows

“Impress These Apes,” Blewt!

“Shatter,” Pat O’Brien’s solo show at Second City e.t.c.

“Steve and Jordan, Respectively” i.O. Theater

“Brother, Can You Spare Some Change?” Second City e.t.c.

“PennyBear: A Collection of Miniature Plays and Curious Diversions,” Apollo Theater Studio

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Female Performances

Janet Ulrich Brooks, “Golda’s Balcony,” Pegasus Players

Christina Anthony, “Brother, Can You Spare Some Change?” Second City e.t.c.

Erin Barlow, “Red Angel,” LiveWire

Sarah Goeden, “13 Dead Husbands,” Sansculottes Theater

Rachel Quinn, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Circle Theatre

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Male Performances

David Cromer, “Our Town,” The Hypocrites

Usman Ally, “Celebrity Row,” American Theater Company

Steve Wilson, “Red Angel,” LiveWire

Edward Thomas-Herrera, “The Last Days of Beast,” Live Bait’s Fillet of Solo Festival

Daniel Behrendt, “Beggars in the House of Plenty,” Mary-Arrchie

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Out-of-the-Box Performances

“Inner Space,” Joffrey Ballet’s American Moderns

“Walking Mad,” Hubbard Street Dance Winter Series

“The Young Ladies Of…,” About Face Theatre

“Dr. Egg and the Man With No Ear,” Redmoon Theater

“One on One,” Hubbard Street Dance Winter Series

—William Rogers

Top 5 Dance Shows by Chicago Companies

“The Sky Hangs Down Too Close,” Lucky Plush Productions

“Nuevo Folk,” Luna Negra Dance Theater

“De-Evolution of Mudwoman,” Breakbone DanceCo

“Vintage Modern,” Same Planet Different World Dance

“American Moderns,” Joffrey Ballet

—Sharon Hoyer

Top 5 Overrated Productions

“Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe,” House Theatre

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Shining City,” Goodman Theatre

“The Glass Menagerie,” Shattered Globe Theatre

“Scenes from the Big Picture,” Seanachai Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Theatrical Disappointments

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Les Miserables,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

“Yohen,” Silk Road Theatre Project

“Richard III,” Strawdog Theatre

“Macbeth,” Greasy Joan & Co.

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Larry Adams as Harold Hill and Alicia Berneche as Marian Paroo

RECOMMENDED
A onetime flute player for John Philip Sousa and Arturo Toscanini who went on to write operas, symphonies, band music, standards and score radio programs, Meredith Wilson is best remembered these days for his 1957 show “The Music Man.” Inspired by his small-town boyhood in early twentieth-century rural Iowa, Wilson worked on “The Music Man” for eight years and wrote over forty songs for it, less than half of which made it into the show itself. One of these, “Till There Was You,” was the only cover song from a musical ever recorded by the Beatles and became a huge hit for the Fab Four in 1964, having been the second song that the group performed on its initial Ed Sullivan appearance that launched the British Invasion.

Ever since its inception, the role of conman and would-be boys’ band director “Professor” Harold Hill has been the domain of actors rather than singers, with the main musical qualification being the ability to crisply articulate or “speak” most of the sung sections with precise and punchy rhythmic syncopation. That Light Opera Works chose a singer, Larry Adams, to play the role suggested the intriguing possibility that the usually spoken sections of the songs might actually be sung, but Adams flabbily speaks his way through most of the songs yet does not have the acting chops to credibly seduce even the town librarian, let alone the entire town. Marian the librarian has the best singing moments, and Alicia Berneche tosses these off with such flair and style that in this production, it is she, not Hill, who comes off as the charismatic and colorful one of the pair and he, the dullard in need of a makeover.

Thankfully, there is enough else right in this production and full-blown, uncut revivals of the show are rare enough to make seeing this elaborate staging well worthwhile. The townspeople character parts are a hoot, particularly Jo Ann Minds as the eccentric mayor’s wife and Barbara Clear as Marian’s mother, who nearly stole the show at the opening. And with a full orchestra and Kevin Bellie’s imaginative and energetic choreography—some of the best seen at Light Opera Works—along with wonderful performances of Wilson’s score and remarkable counterpoint that, for instance, musically layers cackling gossips with smooth as silk barbershop quartet music, the experience is a welcome and timely look back while we pause to look ahead. (Dennis Polkow)

“The Music Man” plays through January 4, 2009 (including New Year’s Eve) at Northwestern University’s Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson, Evanston, (847)869-6300. $29-$87.

It was 1920 when Eugene O’Neill was awarded his first Pulitzer Prize for “Beyond the Horizon,” forecasting his place in theater history as one of America’s most important playwrights. Nearly a hundred years later, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre honors and examines the legacy of the “father of American drama” with “A GLOBAL EXPLORATION: Eugene O’Neill in the 21st Century,” a three-month festival (curated by Artistic Director Robert Falls) showcasing productions by some of today’s most innovative and exciting theater companies. At the top of the lineup is the New York City-based Wooster Group, itself a legend of the contemporary American stage, presenting their groundbreaking interpretation of “The Emperor Jones.”

For over three decades, under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte, the company has been constructing its powerfully unique multimedia performances, including radical reworkings of plays by some of the most lauded playwrights of the historical and contemporary canon: Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill. Their highly stylized productions have earned critical acclaim and drawn passionate controversy, perhaps none more so than “Jones,” the rarely produced, controversial, expressionistic tale of Brutus Jones, the tyrannical emperor of an island in the West Indies, on the run from natives in revolt, haunted by the ghosts of both his criminal past and the scars of America’s nefarious racial history. The nucleus of the Group’s explosive production, which premiered in 1993, is Kate Valk, a white woman who takes the stage with her face caked in thick black makeup, assuming the title role. It is a performance that has been praised by critics as “riveting, haunting and altogether astonishing,” a “tour de force” that has challenged racial and gender stereotypes while dazzling, disturbing and defying expectations of audiences around the globe.

Valk’s relationship with O’Neill’s play goes back to her childhood: “I certainly grew up with [it]…Paul Robeson [the stage and screen legend who played Jones in the 1924 revival] was one of my idols and I had seen the film…I had even, as a young girl, seen a ballet version of ‘The Emperor Jones’ so I certainly knew about it, although I hadn’t ever read the actual play.” It wasn’t until much later that Valk encountered the play on the page, when LeCompte presented the idea of producing the play to the Group. “When I first started working with the company they were doing ‘Port Judith,’ and Spalding’s [Gray] party piece was kind of a mad dance… he and Liz had taken and edited a section from ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night,’ so O’Neill was around…we read [‘Jones’], and she [LeCompte] thought that I could play it.”

The Wooster Group’s process draws from a variety of sources—music, film, traditional global theater practices, pop culture—and for this production, the company found a great deal of inspiration in the presentational style of Japanese Noh theater. “We began working with the text from O’Neill and the movement that we loved from the Asian theater forms—not that we studied it at all, it was more a kind of very modern, fast synthesis of all those materials, but it came very intuitively. And it’s all there on the page, like music… It’s written phonetically.”

And on a first reading, O’Neill’s writing style is nearly as startling in its appearance on the page as the story itself—the diction and language immediately and disturbingly evoke the ghosts of American minstrelsy characters. Confronted with the apparition of a prison guard he killed before fleeing to the island, Jones cries out to the dark walls of the surrounding forest “I kills you, you white debil, if it’s de last thing I evah does! Ghost or debil, I kill you agin!” Valk’s Brutus Jones is presented with such magnetic and unrelenting precision that each performance, she admits, is extremely exhausting, and preparing for each remount of the show is a challenge to both mind and body for this seasoned and accomplished actress. “I don’t quite have the same energy I had when I was 35,” Valk says with a chuckle, “but maybe there’s something else I look for. I would say what I lose in youthful robustness I maybe make up for just by experience of all the other kind of performance I’ve done with Liz and the group since then. [The performance] takes a lot of energy and I was a little worried about that until… Scott [Shepard] and Ari [Fliakos], the people that I play with on stage, and I just watched the tape. I’m really looking forward to doing it again.”

Those recordings of past performances are invaluable tools for the Group when remounting works from their thirty-plus year history. “We just watched the tape of the last time we performed it, in Philadelphia a little over a year ago. It’s scored out, and it doesn’t change radically in terms of structure. The singing of the song, of the text, my style, is still very much the same.” But this tour of “Jones” will be the company’s last, says Valk, explaining simply that “there are certain roles you play at certain times of your life.”

But Valk seems more than pleased at the prospect of launching the first of the final performances here in Chicago, a fitting culmination of the fifteen-year journey of “Jones.” “It’s an honor to be part of the O’Neill festival—are you kidding? To have the work seen in that context, I’m thrilled. To be considered part of the modern canon of O’Neill’s work, I’m deeply honored.”

At Goodman Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, (312)443.3800, January 7-11

A sure sign of a comedian who’s not all that self-centered or too neurotic: the ones that can make fun of themselves just as mercilessly as they would a celebrity. L.A.-based comedian Mike Bridenstine, who’s done a fine job poking fun at Pamela Anderson and Eminem (through his semi-internet meme “Every Eminem Song Ever,” which mostly only features the words “8 Mile,” “Detroit,” “Haley,” and “Mom”) has also found a plethora of ways to tie a variety of subjects to his somewhat pathetic state of existence, like gaining excess weight, being a Cubs fan and even Terrell Owens’ rumored attempted suicide. “The cool part about it, his publicist went on and said, ‘There’s no way T.O. tried to kill himself. T.O. has twenty-five million reasons not to commit suicide,’” he says. “I’m watching like, ‘That’s awesome. I was just at the bank; I clearly have sixty-eight reasons not to commit suicide.’”

January 2 at Lincoln Lodge, 4008 North Lincoln, (773)248-1820

RECOMMENDED

The first thing you will notice about Kevin Hart is that he’s comically short and knows it. His upcoming album uses its title, “I’m a Grown Little Man,” to get the amusement from his five-foot, four-inch height out of the way so that he can use the rest of the time ripping through other, non-short people jokes (though he does say he yearns to have a son he can name “Lil’ Kev,” just so people will call him “Big Kev”). Animated, fiery and oftentimes hilariously argumentative in a harmless sort of way, Hart’s always moving, screaming, shrieking and convulsing if it means a laugh. Theatrics, though, aren’t the meat of his act. Hart’s mostly a substance-first, style-second kind of a comic, even if the substance is about things like fat-ass toddlers. “I saw this lady like three weeks ago; this lady had one of the fattest asses I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. “She was like three or four years old. … I ain’t never seen a Pamper like that. Huggies don’t make those.”

December 30 at Zanies, 1548 North Wells, (312) 337-4027.

RECOMMENDED

You probably have never heard of South Side comedian Robert Hines, but perhaps you’re one of the 800,000 views to his alter-ego’s You Tube video, “Jones Big Ass Truck Rental and Storage,” the newest internet meme created by Hines and local sketch group Big Dog Eat Child. Local entrepreneur Toby Jones will store anything – rusty bicycles, antique silverware, buses, weed, you name it—in an abandoned warehouse for the low, low price of $10.99 a month! “Now friends, you may ask yourself, ‘how in the hell can he store this stuff for such a cheap price?’” Toby asks. “The fact of the matter is I’m pretty drunk right now.” While Jones may be one of the year’s best internet characters, it’s thankfully not the only part of Hines’ act. Potential targets of Hines’ chuckle-worthy observational humor: Flying as an overweight individual, the way African-Americans spruce up the National Anthem, and, best of all, his love of “boobies.”

December 31 at Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, (773)472-3492

As certain as there is eggnog and mistletoe, there is an annual production of Tchaikovsky’s best-known work. The Joffrey adorns the holiday confection with felicitous glitz and spectacle; bejeweled costumes, a children’s chorus, rapid-fire virtuosic solos (in the Land of Sweets scene) ornament the stage of the golden Auditorium Theatre—a plush visual gift wrap for one of the most famous pieces of classical music and dance ever set to stage. Featuring Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino’s elegant choreography, the Joffrey “Nutcracker” holds strong as a seasonal family treat and the gateway ballet for those who tend to run at the first sight of tutus and men in white tights; strap a giant rat king head on one of your principle dancers and all those fussy French moves seem a lot less stuffy. Sure, you’ve seen it a half-dozen times, but that doesn’t stop you from watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” every Christmas, or insisting your friends who haven’t do so immediately. Take the family, take someone who’s never seen a ballet, sit back and feel like a kid again. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkway, (312)902-1500. December 18-28. $25-$100.

Michael Halberstam as Scrooge at Writers

By Dennis Polkow

When Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” back in 1843, he reportedly did it merely to pay off a debt.  His “little Christmas book,” as he liked to describe it, became the first in series of six Christmas books, but none ever attained the same popularity as that first effort.  A less clever man might have been annoyed by the success of what he clearly considered a lesser work, but not Dickens.  He was enough of a populist to recognize, as Jean-Paul Sartre would later explicitly state it, that the public always completes every work of art.  So unlike Tchaikovsky, who had nightmares about the fact that he would be best remembered for the “1812” Overture and “The Nutcracker,” Dickens shrewdly saw the dramatic and commercial opportunities for “A Christmas Carol” early on.  Nine years after writing it, Dickens read the novella publicly to a literary society in Birmingham and three days later to a working-class audience.  Both groups were mesmerized, according to newspaper accounts.

That same tradition continued on with stage actors for decades well into the radio era although, curiously, the thought of actually dramatizing the story gained more popularity when silent movies came in, allowing for dissolves and such that could make the ghosts described in the story actually appear via camera tricks.  In the case of the Goodman Theatre, one of the oldest attempts to literalize the story on a live stage, the earliest adaptation thirty-one years ago opened with Dickens himself writing the story on stage at his desk with a quill pen and serving as a pseudo-narrator, although he became gradually less relevant as the action progressed.  Much was made about the first time that various ghosts took flight on stage in the early 1980s, and long before falling chandeliers and helicopter landings became commonplace in mega-musicals of the later 1980s, plenty of folks were coming to the Goodman “A Christmas Carol” for the stagecraft more than the story.  There were times when the production became so behemoth and so stripped to the bone narratively that Dickens seemed to fade away from the proceedings almost as mysteriously as Marley’s face on Scrooge’s knocker.

In this year’s production, a small Greek chorus of jovial carolers endeavor to tell the story, right from “Marley is dead” and like that first Goodman adaptation some three decades ago, they fade away from the proceedings but do appear now and then when a jolt of Dickensian language is needed.  After all, when the narrative is stripped bare apart from its social commentary and wry humor and eloquent storytelling, even Mister Magoo can play Ebenezer Scrooge.

Larry Yando as Goodman's Scrooge

The problem that poor Larry Yando, a terrifically talented actor who is playing Goodman’s Scrooge for a second year, has is to flesh out a character via dialogue that does not benefit from Dickens’ own insertive language.  Invariably, this means that Yando, like most Scrooge portrayals, ends up coming across at the beginning more cranky and mean than the book and more joyous and childlike in the end as a literal contrast has to be drawn.

The huge advantage that Michael Halberstam has in his solo performance of “A Christmas Carol” at Writers’ Theatre is that his own portrayal of Scrooge can be far more subtle because he can play up Dickens’ own descriptions.  His Scrooge is more indifferent than mean, very matter of fact.  I haven’t heard the recordings of our state’s governor, for instance, allegedly refusing to pay children’s hospital funds without a kickback, but I would be quite surprised if he were hissing or screaming as he is doing so.  Usually such “requests” are calm and cool.  People can often be polite when they utter the casually brutal equivalent of “Are there no prisons?  Are there no workhouses?”  If Scrooge is angry, he is less interesting.  It is indifference that is responsible for his isolation, not a temper.

By the same time, the transformation that Scrooge goes through during “A Christmas Carol” is one of self-discovery through his life’s journey.  We see him become indifferent when his father leaves him at school over the holidays because the alternative is to fall apart.  As an older man, he can recognize the cruelty of this in a way that psychological self-defense would never permit when he is a teenager.  Scrooge has become his father in his dealings with his clerk and others, but only by recalling the pain that the indifference of his father towards him does he come to see this.  And so it goes, encounter by encounter, Scrooge even assuming that the point of his visitations is for self improvement, which is why he cannot bring himself to even consider the possibility that the first death portrayed during the Ghost of Christmas Future visitation could be his own.

The other detail made so clear in Halberstam’s performance that is lost at Goodman is that Scrooge has learned to stop feeling much of anything at all, good or bad.  So when he does start to feel some things once again with the Spirits, he wants to dismiss these in Dickens’ language.  And he cynically jokes with the ghosts as much as he is afraid of them, realizing it could be indigestion, or even senility, since these visitations were supposed to happen over three nights so he could have well missed Christmas entirely.

And what of the transformation at the end?  How radical is it?  Dickens gives Scrooge enough of a heart at the beginning—after all, the clerk does end up with the day off—and enough impatience at the end as he is watching himself try to be polite to a boy that he condescendingly finds can actually converse and quip, that there is more ambiguity here than Goodman or other literal adaptations can allow.

Halberstam and Writers Theatre are on to something very important in their rediscovery of “A Christmas Carol” as a solo performance work: the power of great storytelling itself in communicating the soul of a story vs. stringing together a host of scenes portrayed literally and hoping that the end result will be more than the sum of its parts.

This difference can best be seen in the response of young children to both approaches: children love Goodman’s “A Christmas Carol,” perhaps especially the “scary” parts, much like an amusement-park ride.  And adults love to bring children to watch them watch the experience.  The few young children who were brought to Writers’ Theatre “A Christmas Carol” however, barely made it through the first scene.  Some were just bored, to be sure, but others were struck down with primordial terror by the intensity and power of a single storyteller baring and focusing his all.  Children tend to have far more developed imaginations than most of us do as we get older, and Dickens’ eloquence is such that each of us in our own way conjures up in our mind’s eye something far more terrifying than anything the most literal staging of “A Christmas Carol” could possibly convey.

“A Christmas Carol” runs at the Goodman Theatre, (312)443-3820, through December 31; and at Writers’ Theatre, (847)242-6000, through December 23.