STAGE REVIEW : One-Man ‘Charles Dickens’ at West Coast Ensemble a Bit Musty

If Ebenezer Scrooge had caught Philip King Kroopf’s “Meet Charles Dickens,” Tiny Tim would have gone to bed hungry.

Kroopf’s solo performance at the West Coast Ensemble suggests a piece of material that’s been stored in the attic too long. Kroopf, a veteran actor who has done this show for decades and to prior acclaim, makes Dickens, with a couple of exceptions, seem musty instead of fresh.

Kroopf appears too frayed and hammy to pull off a show in which he impersonates characters from Dickens’ novels. Framed as the novelist’s last public appearance, at Steinway Hall in New York in 1868, the production veers between Kroopf as Dickens himself and people from his books.

But elements conspire against Kroopf and director Phyllis Lycett. Kroopf’s Victorian tuxedo has the look of mothballs about it. His dark gray wig and bushy beard are so patently obvious they seem at any moment ready to fly off his head. And his habitual snorting when he attempts to verbally segue into a Dickens character is offensive.

The show partially redeems itself near the end when Kroopf calmly reads the moving “women weaving” scene from the last pages of “A Tale of Two Cities,” followed by a telescoped dramatization of “A Christmas Carol,” which, by default, is moderately successful.

The point is that the one-person show has advanced so much in sophistication that an actor can no longer get away with this kind of pale guest appearance. It doesn’t work anymore--even if it’s Dickens revived at Christmastime.

* “Meet Charles Dickens,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd. Today , Wednesday, 8 p.m. $14. (213) 871-1052.