Discover ‘A Christmas Carol’ anew, as read by ‘Charles Dickens’ himself

For those who think they know Dickens’ classic Christmas tale, it is time to come and discover “A Christmas Carol” anew by hearing the story read by Charles Dickens himself as performed by Byron Tidwell. In his marvelous one-man show at the Onyx, Tidwell brought both the author and the story to life again.

Dickens made two popular reading tours in America, and Mr. Tidwell captures the spirit of what it must have been like to witness the great author himself reading from his most famous work at one of his tour stops.

Apparently the popularity of “A Christmas Carol” revived Christmas as a family celebration after it had grown moribund over the years as a church holy day. Some of our own holiday traditions, such as the now politically suspect greeting “Merry Christmas,” were popularized by the success of the book.

Dickens’ sentimentalism is how many remember the story from its many stage and screen versions, and certainly Tidwell does not downplay it. I can’t imagine that there were any dry eyes in the audience after the death of Tiny Tim. But Tidwell also brings out Dickens’ biting social commentary that George Bernard Shaw said made his work more subversive of the existing social order than Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital.”

One can hardly help but see in Bob Cratchit’s miserable wages and lack of benefits a modern Wal-Mart worker who must depend upon public subsistence to be able to provide food and health care for his family. Scrooge supports the prisons and workhouses but not charity or even a living wage.

Some contemporary critics accused Dickens of creating caricatures rather than characters, but Mr. Tidwell’s Scrooge even at his most “Bah, humbug!” is more than just a cartoon.

We feel a certain Scrooge-like sympathy for him when his too-cheerful nephew pesters him with holiday invitations. Like Scrooge, we may also see the end-of-the-year glad handling by the many worthy charities as “a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December!”

But when the three Ghosts of Christmas — Past, Present, and Yet to Come — visit Scrooge like the three angels of the apocalypse announcing his impending doom, his dawning understanding that “mankind was my business” redeems him. Mr. Tidwell’s portrayal of Scrooge’s transition from miserly despair to humility and hope is heartrending.

Though Scrooge initially attributes his ghostly apparitions to an “undigested bit of beef” and “more of gravy than the grave,” Tidwell’s spectral manifestations, ably assisted by the spooky lighting design of the Onyx’s technical crew, reveal that behind this Christmas tale is a good, old-fashioned ghost story that will give you a start in the darkened theater.

Mr. Tidwell is at his most delightful as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who he portrays as a bacchian Father Christmas irresistibly cheerful.

We were fortunate to be charmed in the opening night audience by a large group of fifth-graders who filled the small Onyx theater and reminded us in the words of Dickens, “It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas.” Tidwell brought to his telling of this beloved classic a child’s fresh vision and innocent heart.