Adapting the timeless Dickens story “A Christmas Carol” is the holiday version of Shakespeare, with each new director or designer building on the legend and making a welcome personal mark on the author’s unshakable edifice.
The George C. Scott version was always one of my favorites. But I also have childhood memories of being scared silly by a Minneapolis Guthrie Theater edition of the tale, with booming thunderclaps and special effects designed for a wicked Halloween, not a redemptive Christmas. Many of the “adult” runs at “Christmas Carol” are downright terrifying for the average 5- or 6-year-old.
So try not to giggle when I suggest that “The Muppet Christmas Carol” may be one of the truest and most enjoyable adaptations around. In nearly every novel, Dickens set the comic dangerously close to the maudlin. Who better than the Muppets to walk that fine line and come out winners?
Brian Henson built this “Carol” on another great foundation by choosing Michael Caine as Scrooge. Kermit was the obvious Cratchit, but Caine brings the brutal indifference, and the later boundless joy, that playing Scrooge properly has always required.
With the news pages still full of America’s foreclosure mess as we celebrate the bounty of the holidays, the opening of “Muppet Christmas Carol” seems more relevant than ever: Scrooge tosses out a foreclosed-on homeowner who has pleading for mercy, then hands Cratchit a pile of papers:
Scrooge: Let us deal with the eviction notices for tomorrow, Mr. Cratchit.
Cratchit: Tomorrow is Christmas, sir.
Scrooge: You may gift-wrap them, then.
Now that’s cold!
And it’s part of the guarantee that the “Muppet Christmas Carol” will eventually warm your heart. Bring all the kids to this one.
Rated: G, without the dark special effects poured into some versions of “Christmas Carol” hauntings.
Best suited for: It’s an all- ages show, wonderfully suited for a post-meal gathering on the couch.
