After seeing A Christmas Carol at The Meadow Brook Friday night in all of its Victorian traditional seasonal glory, Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge at The Dio–Dining & Entertainment was a bit like seeing The Simpsons treatment of the Dickens classic.

That’s not a bad thing. After all, despite my own love of the Dickens classic, I know some people are tired of seeing familiar and traditional stage and film treatments of the 19th century Christmas story. The Dio’s handling of Christopher Durang’s irreverent and at times campy, absurd treatment of Dickens’ Cratchit family with a mash-up with It’s A Wonderful Life is a comedy diversion, for sure, from roasting chestnuts, candy canes, The Messiah and caroling.

The story focuses on how utterly miserable and worn out Mrs. Cratchit is–what with her eternally child-loving husband who has collected 21 children, including their own three offspring and a new foundling. They have no money and no food. When he brings home the baby, she asks, “What do you want me to do with it? Cook it?”

Ebeneezer Scrooge is grouchy, yes, but he forms an on-stage attachment to the life-weary wide-cracking Mrs. Cratchit with whom he connects. The children we see, two of whom don’t have names (too much trouble and thery are too poor to bother with names), are forever hungry, but are given some good gag lines. The eldest daughter, Little Nell (Amanda Durham), is the target of withering insults about her plain looks. The rest are in the root cellar awaiting scraps of food.

Durang wrote the play in 2002. Back then, the play’s references to the Enron corporate scandal in 2001, Leona and Harry Helmsley, whose apex of newsworthiness was in the late 1990s and early 1990’s, were much fresher. I couldn’t help wondering how many audience members were getting or missing those references, which play prominently in the story.

Dio artistic director and the play’s director Steve Debruyne plays the amiable relentlessly chipper Bob Cratchit just right, and his comedic timing helps a script that seems a bit flawed with laugh lines not always landing because of the author, not the players here. Vanessa Sawson as Mrs. Cratchit is quite good making the sarcastic, unhappy, and even suicidal, Victorian mother of 21 amusing throughout. Ebony Hull has to have big shoulders as the saucy African American, as cast in the script, who must play all three of Dickens ghosts. She carries her comedic load and banter admirably. When she has the lines, she nails it. But, again, sometimes Durang’s script makes it a heavy lift at times.

Supporting actors are terrific too. Brendan August Kelly is a riot as Tiny Tim, who is 21 now. He hobbles and whimpers, but still always looking on the bright, optimistic side, providing the foil and balance to his mother. And he does a hilarious ad-lib when the foundling baby (a doll) went flying off the stage (not in the script)–hopping off the stage and then, without missing a beat, looked up at a cast-mate and said, “C’mon, help me up…I’m crippled.” Jared Schneider doesn’t have a lot of stage time as Fezziwig, but he and Mrs. Fezziwig (Amanda Durham) are a weird kind of funny as the old Victorian couple from the Scrooge story. Marc Bernstein shines as Marley’s Ghost, and returns in second act as Clarence from It’s A Wonderful Life. Dale Dobson employs a good comedic British accent and does a nice job of embodying the hard-bitten miser, Scrooge, who is not in charge of the situation at all and gets tasered by his Ghosts when he steps out of line.

The first act works better than the shorter second act when George Bailey, Clarence and the Helmsleys (Scrooge and Mrs. Cratchit who have been sent forward in time to 1977) make their appearance. The show, on the whole, works pretty well, though, making a nice diversion from all the same ‘ol same ol’ Christmas tidings, music, decorations, etc. If I was Durang, though, I would do a write-through revision, update some of the references and revisit some of the laugh lines for editing to make it hold up better over time.

As is, there are still a lot of belly laughs, and as always, Chef Jarod’s signature fried chicken makes for a nice evening out in December.

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