‘Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol’ Takes the Stage

Ebenezer Scrooge’s former business partner weighs in on redemption and earns his saving grace.

Phil Timberlake returns to the Lifeline Theatre, in "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol." Jackie Jasperson

CHICAGO—Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” opens with the famous line “Marley was dead: to begin with. ... Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.” By creating an air of finality in the first sentences, Dickens set up the fear that Scrooge will experience when Marley returns. The ghost warns Scrooge that all his past misdeeds will terrorize him long after his death—a key factor in what eventually causes Scrooge to change his ways at the end of the novel.

We know what happens to Scrooge, but what happens to poor Jacob Marley? That was the question that playwright Tom Mula explored when he wrote “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol” in 1995. It’s now an exquisite production at Chicago’s Timeline Theatre.

A Unique Revisioning

The tale is told from Marley’s point of view as Mula’s inventive vision makes the character the creator of the events that unfold in “A Christmas Carol.” From the very beginning, we see Marley as the man behind the scenes, who is responsible for events that end up spinning out of his control.