Stewart Lends ‘Carol’ a Refreshing Touch

It starts with a pathetic little cough, then rolls into a procession of wheezing gasps. And then the body relaxes, the face widens into a grin and--by this time the tittering audience has anticipated the result--old Scrooge is laughing.

Oh, you’ve seen him laugh before, too many times to count. But you’ve never really made the artful codger’s acquaintance until you’ve seen Patrick Stewart’s delightful and astonishingly inventive one-man adaptation of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” which has opened for a limited run at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood.

With this, the Ur-text of seasonal sentimentality, the British actor best known for his turn as Capt. Picard on TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” has achieved an exquisite act of theatrical imagination. For while we suffer from a surplus population of stage “Carols”--most meaning little more to viewers than a stray holly sprig--Stewart has found ways to make the story boldly and unforgettably new.

That’s partly because he, unlike many adapters, hews closely to the original tale, first published in 1843. Dickens’ formidable words have drawn legions of enemies over the years, including unwitting ones like ad copywriters (such are the perils of the public domain). But they have enjoyed few more devoted and companionable friends than Stewart, who illuminates even the lesser-known passages with dazzling clarity and wit.

But it’s the actor’s irrepressible showmanship that makes this a “Carol” beyond compare (the show has had runs in previous years in Southern California at various venues, as well as on Broadway and in London). For all his technical skills, Stewart has enough Hollywood in him to keep the kiddies and stage neophytes (both of whom were in evidence on opening night) entertained as he narrates and impersonates 40 or so characters.

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This is not the bombastic Scrooge of yore. His cruelty manifests itself with an arched eyebrow here, a dryly disdainful wisecrack there. There’s a little bit of Noel Coward in him. And when he laments Bob Cratchit’s request for holiday pay (“It’s not fair!” he says with a moan), we almost feel, a la Milton’s Satan, a bit of sympathy for this devil, long before his ennobling turnaround.

Yet the portrait of Scrooge is almost overwhelmed by Stewart’s masterful evocation of nearly every other character from the text, from an unflappable, butler-like Ghost of Christmas Present to an indelibly forlorn, falsetto-voiced Tiny Tim. Clad in a simple olive suit and backed only by a few pieces of wooden furniture on an otherwise naked stage, he even manages some brilliant tableaux, including a hilariously mimed dance at Fezziwig’s shop.

It’s difficult to imagine a more welcome Christmas gift.

* “A Christmas Carol,” James A. Doolittle Theatre, 1615 N. Vine, Hollywood. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Saturdays, 2 p.m., Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Dec. 22. $35-$49.50. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.