I approached Actors Theatre’s annual musical production of “A Christmas Carol” with what politicos call “cautious optimism.”

Frankly, my first impression of the show last year was less than favorable. I saw “a show that makes a lot of noise but, like the Ghost of Christmas Future, doesn’t really say anything.”

The problem was its Dickens-lite adaptation (written by director Matthew Wiener and East Valley Tribune writer Michael Grady, with music and lyrics by Alan Ruch), a rewrite injecting comedy and musical numbers that largely dilute the spirit of the original tale.

But if “Carol” teaches us anything, it’s that redemption is possible. Give Actors Theatre another shot, I thought. Perhaps there’s goodness to be found after all.

Alas. Like Scrooge, maybe I should have stayed in bed.

The Equity production hasn’t changed from last year, save for some cast tweaks. Last year’s Tiny Tim has graduated to play Young Scrooge. Black Theatre Troupe’s David Hemphill plays Mr. Fezziwig — he’s outstanding in the minor role, too — and E.V. community actress Katie Hart Olsen is a darling Belle. Solid Southern California actor Kim Bennett returns for a fifth time to play that uptight miser Ebenezer Scrooge with Shakespearean gravitas. If anything, my second go-round with this “A Christmas Carol” has highlighted many of the same, and more, irritations.

The musical aspect of the show feels like an unnecessary aftermarket add-on. Ruch’s songs — which pop up throughout the tale in places either too obvious or too gratuitous — are superfluous concoctions of middling lyrical value and melodies coated in Teflon, they’re so non-stick.

This “Carol” is riddled with special effects, from Paul Black’s overactive lighting design to billowing stage smoke to Jacob Marlow dropping by chains from the flyspace, making his visit to former business partner Scrooge with a speaker-distorting barrage of swooshy, spooky sounds.
For all the Sturm und Drang of Marlow’s whiz-bang accoutrements, sadly they chew up important bits of his dialogue. And the Ghost of Christmas Future — a gigantic skeletal head that hangs in the background — is head-scratchingly silly.

Dickens’ original tale has its own measure of humor, and the Wiener- Grady adaptation often does little more than toss easy riffs and cheap gags into the fray. Often, that has a dissociative effect, ripping us out of the 19th-century story just when we might begin to invest our attention in it. Meanwhile, I still loathe D. Scott Withers’ dippy Ghost of Christmas Present, a bag of confetti away from being Rip Taylor — though this year he seems somewhat more sedate.

But not all is irredeemable.

There are bits of humor that do sparkle with Grady’s wit, largely as the intermissionless production speeds to its close to compensate for a lumbering first half. (Caveat: I share a newsroom with Grady, and his columns for the Trib consistently crack me up.) The jokes don’t solve the problem of sounding unnatural alongside Dickens’ text, but they do elicit chuckles.

That I’m much more a fan of the traditional staging of “A Christmas Carol” at Gilbert’s Hale Centre Theatre says a lot about what I want from Dickens’ beloved Christmas tale taken to a stage: I don’t need overblown spectacle — my imagination can do just fine without flying Marleys — and I’m not yet so sick of the story that I need a few extra yuks or spiritless songs chucked into the mix to keep me awake.