‘Scrooge’ muddled by sound glitch

A new twist on an age-old holiday story was unveiled Saturday night at the Maine Center for the Arts. It just wasn’t different enough.

The New Stage Originals presentation of “Scrooge the Musical,” which was also staged Sunday, is, as the title suggests, a musical version of Charles Dickens’ uplifting tale of redemption, “A Christmas Carol.”

The production was hampered throughout the first act by sporadic sound quality in Hutchins Concert Hall. Every time John Randall spoke or sang as the titular character, which not surprisingly was frequently, static soon followed. Also, much of the score called for the actors to sing in counterpoint to one another and the lyrics often became an incomprehensible muddle for the audience of 1,314. Fortunately, most of these technical problems were cleared up during the overly long intermission.

“Scrooge” brought a talented cast to the University of Maine campus, led by Randall as Scrooge, Kelby Thwaits as both the narrator and Jacob Marley, the comic duo as Lorraine Buros and Amelia Stoger as Scrooge’s laundress and charwoman, and Elliott D. Lowery as a bacchanalian Ghost of Christmas Present.

The 11-piece orchestra conducted by Susan LaFever helped the work spring to life. The drawn backdrops of an unspecific old English town added to the atmosphere.

Composer Philip Stern’s adaptation included some wonderfully jazzy dance numbers, which remarkably didn’t feel all that anachronistic for a play set in Victorian England. In fact, they were refreshing.

And yet, “A Christmas Carol” didn’t stand up to a two-hour length. Each ghost hammered his or her point home again and again and again, until audience members thought, “Enough already. He’s got it. He needs to change.”

Perhaps the problem lies in Dickens’ work itself, or at least most adults’ familiarity with it. Except for only the youngest in the audience, maybe it’s an old chestnut that needs to be roasted on an open fire.

So, while the cast was strong enough and the production didn’t rate a “bah, humbug,” it wasn’t the impressive Christmas gift that many went there seeking.