Trinity’s production of A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite Rhode Island traditions. It’s a joy to be reminded that redemption can be earned by those willing to accept it, whether the redemption is for a life focused on greed or for opportunities lost. We know that if Ebenezer Scrooge, of all people, the old moneylender who has lost his way can be given a chance on Christmas Eve to rediscover it, then maybe it’s not too late for the rest of us.

A Christmas Carol at Providence's Trinity Theatre

Trinty Rep’s rendition of A Christmas Carol is a Rhode Island tradition that I’ve had the pleasure to experience off and on over the years, and always enjoyed it. Some lifelong Rhode Islanders don’t consider it Christmas if they miss the play.

See the same play every year, over and over? Well, while it is the same story, the production is given a new flavor each year. The first time I went, the play started intense — almost Broadway-like, with kettle drums and the entire chorus of characters singing about the greediness and miserliness of Scrooge and Marley, while old Ebenezer and his partner shake down the poor of London for their loan payments on Christmas Eve. It wasn't a scene that Dickens hadn’t included in the original, but it does start off the play with a bang, with Marley dying of heart failure and falling into the floor- mounted safe of Scrooge’s counting house.

Another year, it started with almost modern Christmas Carolers. Another year, puppets were the theme. Yet another year Scrooge was female.

One year, the play took on a distinctly comical mode. Sad, unfortunate Scrooge wants only to be left alone to do his work, but his underling Crachet is complaining about the cold, the Victorian equivalent of telemarketers keep coming to his door to request money, neighborhood children come to pester him with their singing, and even his nephew pops in to try dragging him off to some nonsensical family gathering. Even though I enjoy Christmas, I felt sorry for Scrooge, not as a wretch who couldn’t enjoy life, but as someone with a lot of work and too many disruptions, including the series of ghosts to disrupt his sleep and solitude.

The latest time I saw the play, there was music and singing throughout, regularly breaking the fourth wall, and being unafraid to make changes to the storyline where it can thrill, please, or tickle the audience.

For instance, when Scrooge visited the events of Christmas past, he wasn’t an invisible spirit, instead he is an active, if unwilling participant in the joys and pains of his Christmases past.

Entries and exits of the various spirits have always been creative, making great use of the Trinity’s open floor design, appearing objects and people from the “flys” overhead and “traps” below. The costumes always add sparkle, where sparkle is called for, and dreariness where that is needed.

We all know the story, and the dialog stays very close to the original text. The settings change, the casting differs, but a Dickens purist would have nothing to complain about.

So Trinity’s A Christmas Carol is always new, and familiar. Just what we need to get all of us in the spirit of Christmas.