Finding More Than Humbug in Scrooge and Company
This year a critic (and fan) of “A Christmas Carol” finds it especially resonant as a “timely study of what it truly means to be a decent person in a community.”
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Published Dec. 13, 2020Updated Dec. 16, 2020
When I was younger, I drank in every version of “A Christmas Carol” I could find like they were tumblers of eggnog. Eventually, I became a connoisseur. (I maintain the supremacy of “The Muppet Christmas Carol” and “Scrooged,” which I am obligated to watch whenever they’re on TV.)
It isn’t the holly-jolliness that draws me in; I’ve always been intrigued by Scrooge’s scrooginess and the various interpretations of the three ghosts. But this year, as I indulged in a holiday buffet of different productions of “A Christmas Carol,” I found not just a story of redemption and the Christmas spirit but a study of what it truly means to be a decent person in a community. Dickens’s tale, like many of his others, is grounded in progressive politics, and I saw that especially now, in every version I encountered this year, as coronavirus numbers remain high.