Elemental Theatre Company’s spirited staging is an engaging holiday companion to A Christmas Carol.

Everyone knows the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, but Tom Mula’s Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol asks a more provocative question: What becomes of his business partner, Jacob Marley, who Charles Dickens’ classic notes in the novel’s first line, “was dead: to begin with?” Elemental Theatre Company (formerly Wheat Ridge Theatre Company) embraces the irreverent premise with a nimble, earnest production at the Mizel Arts and Culture Center that follows Marley’s reluctant spiritual heroism.

If A Christmas Carol is the story of a hardened capitalist learning compassion, then this version flips the lens: It follows the business partner who must return from the afterlife to drag that transformation out of him. It is essentially the Victorian London equivalent of sending Donald Trump back to persuade Elon Musk to stop being such an obtuse, greedy piece of shit.

Elemental’s production embraces both the humor and the melancholy in that setup, offering a sharply staged and emotionally grounded retelling that keeps the story moving and the performances at its center. While not a replacement for Dickens, it’s a clever and engaging companion piece, especially for audiences already steeped in A Christmas Carol lore.

A minimalistic Dickensian world

Elemental’s production is one of two Colorado stagings of Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol this month (the other is at Breckenridge Backstage Theatre from Dec. 10 to 31), but Denver audiences get the first look.

Mula’s script can be performed either as a one-person storytelling marathon or as a four-actor ensemble piece. Director Selena A. Naumoff wisely chooses the latter, harnessing the full cast to animate the underworld, London and the bureaucratic machinery of the afterlife with crisp theatricality.

Working as both director and lighting designer, Naumoff leans into minimalism while still achieving striking visual variety. Sharp lighting shifts depict hell in fiery reds and oranges, the earthly world in cooler blues and soft yellows, and magic in pinks and purples. Clean blackouts, often punctuated by coordinated hand claps from the actors, give the show a playful, metatheatrical rhythm.

Sound designer Robert Neuhaus and composer Larry Schanker further enrich the production’s atmosphere with work that is understated but effective. Schanker’s original music underscores scenes with just enough melodic suggestion to guide the mood without becoming didactic. Neuhaus’ sound cues (when not cleverly produced by the actors themselves) are smoothly integrated and help delineate shifts between the underworld, London and the spiritual realm.

The staging uses every corner of the Pluss Theatre. Three entrances, plus strategically timed actor arrivals from the audience, keep the story in constant motion, reflecting Marley’s frantic 24-hour deadline to change Scrooge’s heart.

As Marley, B Glick delivers one of their most compelling performances to date. Seen recently in Dance Nation, where their intensity occasionally overwhelmed the material, here they tap into a restrained emotional register. Marley’s panic, bitterness and slow softening unfold through clean narration and superb facial reactions that anchor the production.

Glick’s chemistry with Maggie Wingate’s Bogle, a spritely hell-sprite who lives in Marley’s ear and — in an It’s a Wonderful Life-esque twist, is an angel-in-training — keeps the show buoyant. The duo’s chemistry gives the production much of its humor and heart; Wingate’s buoyancy plays neatly against Glick’s gruff exterior, gradually revealing the unlikely friendship at the play’s center.

Troy Fluhr brings a wonderfully rigid physicality to Scrooge, landing each “Bah, humbug!” with relish while also shapeshifting into some of the underworld’s stranger creatures. Daniel Van Note showcases remarkable versatility, toggling between the Record Keeper, assorted spirits and even Death with distinct vocal textures and crisp physical commitments.

The only real stumble comes from inconsistent accent work. Glick plays Marley without an English inflection, while Wingate and Van Note adopt British accents as hell-realm bureaucrats — an odd choice given their supernatural origins. Fluhr’s Scrooge hovers somewhere between formal American and lightly British, and Glick suddenly affects a Cockney accent when embodying the Spirit of Christmas Past.

The inconsistency isn’t ruinous, but it’s noticeable, especially in a production where the direction elsewhere is so sharply controlled.

From left: B Glick, Maggie Wingate and C. Troy Fluhr in ‘Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol.’ Photo: Selena A. Naumoff

Like Wicked reframes The Wizard of Oz by shifting the point of view, Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol refracts Dickens’ classic through a parallel narrative happening just offstage. The show assumes you know the original well enough to appreciate its sly callbacks and altered angles — jokes about Tiny Tim’s fate and the ghosts’ interventions land best when you can mentally stitch the two stories together.

For newcomers to A Christmas Carol, this version might feel like starting with the sequel, as the script’s emotional punch is richer when you recognize what’s being remixed. But for audiences who return to Dickens year after year, Elemental’s production offers something genuinely refreshing: a companion story that deepens, rather than replaces, the holiday staple.

Elemental’s Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol succeeds because of the choices this production makes: Naumoff’s confident, minimalist direction, the ensemble’s committed physicality and the clarity with which the actors navigate Marley’s emotional arc. The tonal balance — ranging from metatheatrical to genuine sorrow — never wavers, and the production’s inventive use of light, space and movement keeps the story moving at a propulsive pace.

Naumoff and company don’t try to out-spectacle Dickens (for a splashy, heavily produced version of A Christmas Carol, visit the DCPA), but instead present a new chamber of the story in an intimate setting. Elemental Theatre Company’s sharp, enthusiastic production brings new life to an old story and serves as a reminder that even the ghosts that haunt Scrooge must face their own reckoning.