I had heard of the ZACH’s Christmas Carol; it’s hard not too, since it happens annually – this year is the tenth anniversary! Last year was the first time I realized it was a jukebox musical, though, which I admit made me extremely skeptical. But they advertise that they update the show with “fresh music” every year, so as my husband navigated Mopac traffic this weekend, I texted my friends: going to ZACH’s christmas carol. can’t wait to see which Dickens character is brat and which is hot to go lol

Well, perhaps a terminally online playlist was too much to expect. The selection this year spans decades and genres: traditional carols to 80s pop to mid-2010s club hits, where it stops. The playlist may be different than last year’s, but I don’t think anything in the show had been released more recently than 2014. And since the ZACH uses canned music, there wasn’t even a cohesive sound to the karaoke tracks orchestration.

That said, by the end of the first act, I was having a good time. It’s sparkly, it’s loud! Maybe some of the song choices are questionable, but at least the delightfully high-energy choreography by Jen Young Mahlstedt was fun. Costumes (Susan Branch Towne) are colorful. The set design by Bob Lavallee is interesting and festive, even if the clock motif lends the show a seriousness it doesn’t quite live up to. Everyone on stage is talented and committed, even to the cringey fourth-wall-breaking audience interactions (“I see some of you have found happy juice”, says Jill Holmes as the Ghost of Christmas Present, winking, after intermission). So it’s not hard to go along for the ride. Most songs are performed at tempos and keys that match the original, even if some verses are cut for time. Some are reimagined, to varying success. See, e.g., the slowed-down versions of “Man In The Mirror” (okay) and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (weird). I wish the enjoyment I had going into intermission had lasted through the second act.

Unfortunately, the real shame about this production is that the serious parts of the story, especially in the second act, are completely lost. Christmas Carol‘s got such a big budget, ten years under its belt, and a dedicated fanbase, but everything about it seemed for show and sparkle, not for actually telling the story. Any acting (the script an odd amalgam of Dickens’ original words and more modern dialogue) seems like it serves just to cover set changes until the next musical number. There’s hardly any blocking to speak of, and singing takes up far more time than any significant plot points.

For instance, the final scenes after Scrooge (Peter Frechette) has landed back at home with a total change of heart rush headlong for a bit (“I haven’t missed it”, “The turkey as big as me?”, you know), until the momentum comes crashing down just so Bob Cratchit (Ryan Everett Wood) can sing a full four-minute version of “O Holy Night”. Uh, weren’t we in the middle of something here? Where did Scrooge even go? And is this “family friendly” theater, as the ZACH advertises, or is this really just expensive children’s theater?

The seeming lack of attention to the morals of Dickens’ story is especially noticeable against the backdrop of just how Christian this production is. Yes, of course, Christmas is a Christian holiday and the novella is inescapably so. But the first act features secular Christmas music, a Fezziwig (Rod Sanford) who wishes everyone a Happy Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and a Bob Cratchit who doesn’t address any deity by name. But then there’s the aforementioned “O Holy Night”, and the final song before curtain, “Joy To The World”, which the Ghost of Christmas Present encourages the audience to sing along with on the second and third verses. It became reminiscent of the big budget megachurch Christmas services of my youth, including the way the ZACH implored audiences to donate to their production funds on top of their $100+ ticket. The show is about the ZACH and its money – nothing more.

Perhaps I’m too much of an ironypilled millennial and wish the whole thing was a bit more self-aware. There’s plenty of talent going around at the ZACH; maybe it’s time they give in and go back to putting on a Christmas variety show without the pretense of the classic story.

A Christmas Carol at the ZACH Theatre runs through December 29, 2024. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the ZACH online.

P.S. Can someone who’s performed on the Topfer please tell me if you have a conductor on a hidden monitor somewhere, or if you’re just flying solo with those tracks? I’ve got to know.