Now through December 22, one small corner of the Den Theatre, that bustling venue in Wicker Park, is home to Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs 'A Christmas Carol' Again, a cumbersome title for a slight show (at least in cast and production value) that revives a popular (and original) take on the holiday classic first staged in 2011. Star and creator Blake Montgomery first presented his one-man show over a decade ago, earning a Jeff Award in the process and now, even though there's a fully funded, fully cast (and arguably better-known) version downtown at the Goodman, Montgomery still brings his level best to this charming and funny version.
The conceit is undeniably clever: Montgomery is the author himself, who did actually begin presenting live readings of A Christmas Carol in 1853 and then every year until his death in 1870. Though to hear this Dickens tell it, he never really died and instead has been presenting the popular readings every dang year since. For those keeping track, that would make the 2024 holiday season the 171st consecutive year the poor man has been recounting the tale of Scrooge, Marley, the Cratchits and all those ghosts, and Montgomery's Dickens is, well, sick of it.
As the title would imply, we do eventually get around to Scrooge's story, but Montgomery takes his time doing so at the outset of the show's approximately 90-minute (with no intermission) runtime. Instead, he lets us in on a little secret: that tonight won't actually be a public reading of A Christmas Carol but instead a bit of a party—and we're all invited. The overall level of audience participation in the show is a bit confusing; we're encouraged to get up! mingle! stop staring straight ahead! But are we really supposed to? I think not, but if Montgomery was stymied by the blank faces in front of him, he never let on.
A one-person show, whatever the subject matter, is always a marvel to me; that someone has that hour-plus of material committed to memory, plus all the blocking and props and costume changes that might apply, well, it's a special type of talent in my book. Maybe it was press-opening jitters at the performance I attended, or the cobwebs of not performing the role for over a decade, but Montgomery seemed to be overcorrecting in an enthusiastic performance at times bordering on manic. In the storefront space, seating no more than 50 or so people, that energy consumed pretty much everything else in the room.
Whatever was mildly off-putting about Montgomery's energy as he roamed up and down the theater's middle aisle and engaged with those unwitting audience members in aisle seats is balanced by his charming self-awareness—either as himself or Dickens, one can't quite be sure. But it hardly matters, as the effect is the same, disarming the audience and bringing us happily along with him through the chill of Scrooge's office to Marley's haunting visit and his journey through Christmases past, present and future.
This includes when he acknowledges the Goodman-sized elephant in the room directly, confirming what we already know: that Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs 'A Christmas Carol' Again is not that production but it does have something wonderful to offer in its own right: through Dickens himself (as it were), we're taken on a journey of imagination. Familiar as it is, this one-man show that transports us back to Dickens' own era for one of the most classic Christmas tales of all time is a welcome addition to the slew of holiday theater options on offer every year.
On any given night in Wicker Park, there's a lot happening at the Den Theatre, the home to a couple of stages, a couple of bars, no fewer than four resident companies performing their works and an always-packed schedule of performances and appearances.
Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs 'A Christmas Carol' Again runs through December 22 at the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. More information and tickets are available online.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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