2015’s A Christmas Carol: The New Musical has a childish, carnival feeling. Perhaps that makes it more comic. “Mister Scrooge” is an early song about the charitable reps begging off the miser. Awkward-funny. The Marley bit “Look at These Chains” is melodramatically spooky. The songs get old fashioned with a wide range that smacks of opera. The gravitas of the text doesn’t support it, so my eyes kept rolling. “Forever,” for example, is the Present musing what time is really all about. What on earth? “We Build Ourselves Up” is the fun plunderers’ bit. The whole thing winds up as a religious experience with soaring soundtrack. You’ve been preached at.
Iconoclasm washes better. A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol is a Midwest Scandihoovian musical about farting (“Grandma Cut The Christmas Cheese [The Christmas Cheese Polka]“), rejected sexual overtures (“It’s Christmas So Give Me Some More“), and near death experiences (“Gunner Fell Into an Ice Hole“). The comeuppance seems more ‘It’s a Wonderful’ than Scrooge, but what a ride. The pastiche “What Would Barbra Streisand Do?” lands. The white rap “Yo Yo Yo” doesn’t. But white doo wop for “Another Piece of Pie” takes the cake. Ethnic kidding.