By this time in the holiday season, some of us could be “Scrooged” out already. There are the movies, the plays, the musicals and even the cartoons. Yes, paging Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol!

Even if you are Scrooge weary, though, don’t let that stop you from seeing the delightful and inventive A Christmas Carol being performed by The National Theatre of Scotland at the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor. It is a version and production that I suspect would make Dickens sit up, take notice and applaud after perhaps groaning years ago over the lousy 1938 film starring Reginald Owens or the Muppets’ version.

This “Carol” is being performed at The Power Center. But not in the main performing space. Indeed, patrons will be puzzled to be held back in the lobby, and escorted down two flights of stairs in small groups to a performance space under the main stage that I didn’t even know existed. There is a limit of 125 tickets per performance.

One walks into Scrooge’s counting house–sooty, dim, close and dusty–the way, frankly, it probably would have been in coal-fired 1840s London. Scrooge, played exquisitely by Stephen Clyde, is spindly bordering on emaciated from his pointy shoulders down to the hammer toes and bunions on his bare feet.

What makes this production, directed and designed by Graham McLaren, so special and refreshing? The whole story is told by five cast members, a musician and a succession of puppets that are worked by the ensemble. Each spirit, for example, is portrayed by life size puppets operated by the cast, standing behind the puppet, hands working limbs and face. Gavin Glover’s puppets are wonderful, evoking a bit of Tim Burton in their design. Flashback scenes are told with smaller puppets. The approach is brilliance considering the economies of a touring company and the smallness of space intended for the production.

The set design is inventive and as has the magic of a pop-up book. There is a large set of pigeon-hole shelves on one wall, jammed with scrolls, each a contract, loan or mortgage, we think, and all part of Scrooge’s eccentric Victorian filing system. Who needs Excel? There is a closet on another wall that at one point Bob Cratchit (Benny Young) is on top of, writing into his ledgers at his cramped cold desk. The closet itself proves to be a bit of Trojan horse for the play. Composer/musician John Beales plays mood and interlude music, and the impact of his original music does terrific service to the play.

Lighting is also key to the success here. Paul Claydon has a series of incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling on wires, and they dim and brighten to suit the story. Such a simple idea, but one that works to set all the right moods and tones.

No doubt part of the charm of this “Carol” are the Scottish accents of the players, especially Clyde’s, which, together with his shock of wild uncombed hair and sooty make-up, roots one’s imagination in another time, place and century. The combination of puppetry and acting by the excellent ensemble makes the whole production feel like we are getting a spectacular meal prepared by an excellent chef with the simplest box of ingredients–wonderful well trained actors and designers, directed by an imaginative, innovative artist to breathe new life into an old story by taking us back 175 years on a sensory time travel to London and into Charles Dickens’ head space.

If the Christmas Carol at The Meadow Brook Theatre is a Victorian painting come to life in a lush and fabulous high-value production, this Carol is the transformative dream you might have after having a big meal in Glasgow on Christmas Eve. See it before it leaves town. It runs until January 3. Besides being a wonderful 90 minutes of theater, it is a clinic for young directors and actors on creative staging.

Click here for show days, times and details.