Stage Review - Miss Dilber’s Christmas Carol (Phoenix Theatre)

Stage Review - Miss Dilber’s Christmas Carol
Presented By: Phoenix Theatre - Edmonds, WA
Show Run: November 28 - December 21, 2025
Date Reviewed: Sunday, November 30, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours (including a 15-minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

It takes a particular kind of theatrical mischievousness to take one of the most beloved Christmas stories ever told and gleefully flip it on its head, but that’s exactly what Phoenix Theatre has done with Mrs. Dilber’s Christmas Carol, running through December 21 and directed by Eric Lewis. What unfolds on stage is a wonderfully irreverent, fast-moving comic romp—one that treats Dickens not as a sacred text but as a playground. The result is a holiday comedy that feels delightfully skewed, a little chaotic, and absolutely in keeping with Phoenix’s signature brand of ensemble-centric farce.

For those unfamiliar with this particular adaptation, the premise is simple but clever: instead of following Ebenezer Scrooge through his night of supernatural redemption, we follow his housekeeper, the endlessly put-upon Mrs. Dilber (played by Melanie Calderwood). Scrooge is mostly offstage, but his world is very much present—only viewed from the perspective of the people who live in his wake. Dickens' plot beats echo faintly in the background, but the play gleefully toys with them, creating an alternate pre–Christmas Carol world in which Marley is six years dead—placing this story a year before Dickens’ novella—and chaos reigns long before any ghosts start knocking.

This show leans hard into the absurd, and Melanie is the comedic anchor through all of it. Her one-liners and trademark deadpan delivery land solidly, grounding even the wildest moments with her classic style. I’ve highlighted Melanie’s genius for deadpan in many previous reviews—usually in roles where that particular talent serves as a standout element in a supporting capacity. Here, though, placed squarely at the center of the story, that consistent delivery hits hard and funny at first, but begins to wear a bit as the show progresses, almost like hearing the same brilliantly told joke several times in a row. It doesn’t detract from the effectiveness of the play, nor does her lack of a consistently discernible accent (especially when taken in comparison to the ensemble surrounding her), but a touch more dynamic shading in her delivery might elevate this production from very good to truly soaring. Still, Melanie’s command of rhythm and timing remains one of the evening’s strongest comedic pillars.

Supporting her is a nimble ensemble—Ian L. Wight, Ines Kreitbein, James Lynch, Jaret Miller, Jay Jenkins, and Karli Reinbold—each playing multiple roles and shifting character types with ease. Their agility is one of the production’s biggest assets, and it’s also where Grace Helmcke’s work as dialect coach is most vividly on display. From proper Victorian tones to eccentric vocal quirks befitting the show’s more outlandish characters, the ensemble adapts vocally and physically in a way that keeps the comedy sharp and constantly surprising.

Among the ensemble’s comic bright spots, BJ Smyth is a riot, especially in a sequence involving a talking doorknob—his voice adopting a wonderfully manic, Mad Hatter-like quality—and later as a hilariously unhinged Dr. Jekyll. Jag and Ingrid Sanai Buron deliver comically as well, as a very alternate version of the Cratchits, a pair whose dynamic is just twisted enough to feel right at home in this production. Their Tiny Tim, for example, is portrayed not as a frail beacon of innocence, but as a night-wandering homicidal monster who likes to feed on chickens, cats, the occasional goat, and—one suspects—whatever else he can get his hands on. It’s outrageous, but the cast’s total commitment makes the absurdity irresistible.

The show delights in its irreverence—not just toward Dickens’ characters but toward the structure and sentimentality of the original. Beneath the comic mayhem, the play also nods to broader social concerns: how greed corrodes everything it touches, how unevenly comfort and hardship are distributed, and how people on the margins often navigate a world that gives them few honest choices. It raises the idea that morality looks very different when survival is at stake, and that those pushed to society’s edges may define “doing good” in ways that don’t fit neatly into the tidy moral boxes Dickens preferred. The script mostly manages to keep these ideas as background texture, using them as comic fuel without tipping into full-blown sermonizing, although there are moments when it drifts into a slightly heavy-handed tone. Still, the overall effect works: the humor lands, the satire bites, and the message never overwhelms the fun.

The production design contributes its own layer of playful menace. The stage, dressed by Susan Connors, is intentionally simple, a simplicity that allows the ensemble’s character switches and physical comedy to shine, relying on performance rather than complex scenery to drive the storytelling. Combined with Craig Marshall’s technical direction, the world feels deliberately off-kilter and just a little spooky, a skewed reflection of Victorian London where strange spirits, eccentric inventions, and questionable moral choices feel perfectly at home.

Director Eric Lewis keeps the pace brisk and the tone freewheeling, allowing his cast to lean into the absurdity without tipping into chaos. It’s a careful balance, and one that serves the material well—especially in a story that takes so much pleasure in poking fun at its source.

Mrs. Dilber’s Christmas Carol is exactly the kind of show Phoenix audiences come for: a funny twist on a familiar story, performed by an ensemble that knows how to push a joke to its edges without losing the heart beating beneath it. A wonderfully skewed, laugh-heavy detour from traditional holiday fare, Phoenix Theatre’s Mrs. Dilber’s Christmas Carol proves that sometimes the best way to revisit a classic is to kick it sideways and let the comedy fly.

The Phoenix Theatre production of Miss Dilber’s Christmas Carol runs on stage in Edmonds through December 21. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.tptedmonds.org/.

Photo credit: James Sipes