By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Is it the Playhouse production of A Christmas Carol that's feeling a bit more reflective or is it me? (One of the great things about live performance is what each of us brings to our experience.)

Either way (and I suspect it's a bit of both), it's a grand production. A hearty round of applause goes to director Michael Haney, now celebrating his 10th year as Carol director, for continually finding ways to make this holiday classic evergreen.

And a big round of applause, too, to Joneal Joplin, who, this year, has settled not just into Ebenezer Scrooge's slippers but into his skin.

If you don't know A Christmas Carol, it is the best of holiday entertainments. You may have noticed that most holiday releases, whatever the form, aim straight at your wallet with big visuals.

Carol has its share of extravagant stage pictures, including a set that looks like the Victorian village on the mantel come to life. But thanks to Charles Dickens' timeless story, Carol is much more than color, sound and lights. It aims straight at your heart and continues on to your soul.

Dickens' purpose is to do nothing less than reclaim us as the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future reclaim Scrooge. The Spirits remind him of his responsibility to the community of man, and help him discover and celebrate the greatness, not the smallness, of our humanity.

Dickens cleverly couched his life lessons in one heck of a yarn, a Christmas Eve ghostly adventure that sends Scrooge whooshing through time and space to his own past, to being an unseen presence in the household of his clerk Bob Cratchit and on to contemplate the legacy he will leave behind.

One of the great pleasures of Carol for local theater fans is that it's packed with local performers.

Bruce Cromer is an ideal Bob Cratchit, embodying an everyday guy with a lousy boss, a low-paying job and a sick child and who still genuinely counts his blessings.

Greg Procaccino, who has been with Carol from year one, has been deliciously creepy as Marley's Ghost (the shade of Scrooge's dead partner) for years. Even better is his sly performance as man of dubious business Old Joe.

There is change, too: Dale Hodges dons the powdered wig and fairy lit costume of Christmas Past for the first time; Amy Warner steps into Mrs. Fezziwig's dancing shoes to great effect. She and Mark Mineart make a fine pair.

Evan Martin is a terrific Tiny Tim. Ali Breneman and McKenzie Miller are particularly good among the cast of local children.

A Christmas Carol, through Dec. 30, Playhouse in the Park Marx Theatre, 421-3888.