Vulture - Somewhat Recommended
"...There’s a limit to what those screens can conjure, however, and A Christmas Carol falters when it relies more on them than Mays. He’s best with actual props in front of him — as with that table at the Cratchits’, or when he takes a hearty swig from a cup onstage and then offers it to an audience member in front of him — and the scaled-up effects work hard to do what he could accomplish with his own toolbox."
New York Theater - Recommended
"...Jefferson Mays’ version of “A Christmas Carol,” in which he portrays some fifty characters, struck me as a singular adaptation of Charles Dickens’ story in four distinct and memorable ways when I saw it a couple of years ago. Opening tonight at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater, it’s still exceptional…in three ways. I have mixed feelings about the absence of the fourth."
Variety - Recommended
"...That opening line always gives me the chills, and never more so than in this one-man (plus spooky specter) show featuring that consummate artist of many voices and lightning-quick changes, Jefferson Mays. Although the much-lauded actor has played countless roles in every medium known to mortals, he is perhaps most fondly remembered for his quicksilver stage performance in “I Am My Own Wife,” in which he gave a dazzling solo turn and for which he won a Tony Award. Here, in his tour-de-force performance in “A Christmas Carol,” he plays more than 50 characters from Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday classic — including the London fog."
New York Post - Recommended
"...Director Michael Arden’s crackling version, which opened Monday on Broadway, tends to be a staging of ones and twos. One actor, Jefferson Mays, plays almost every role and only a couple pieces of furniture are onstage (Dane Laffrey is the set designer) at any given time."
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...Every year at holiday time, theater goes to the Dickens. So many Christmas Carols ring out annually on the stages of New York that the sheer volume can be confounding: Can anyone manage to make this Victorian chestnut seem fresh again? I confess that I went to the new Broadway production with a touch of trepidation, prepared to roll my jaded eyes and mutter “humbug!” under my breath. Instead, my breath was plumb taken away. This splendid production is a Christmas miracle: The most theatrically fulfilling account of A Christmas Carol that I have ever seen."
Deadline - Highly Recommended
"...There are more than the usual number of miracles to be observed with the latest version of A Christmas Carol to hit Broadway. The usual suspects are here, all the ghosts and spirits and flights over ye olde town and all the witnessing of things past, present and future. And there’s the miracle of one man – the great Jefferson Mays – breathing life into more than 50 characters and having us believe every single shift. And there’s the perhaps more – if only slightly more – quotidian miracle of a creative team – directors of lighting and sound and costumes and projections – at the tops of their games coming together to create gobsmacking theater magic, a blessing director Michael Arden’s Carol has in great bounty."
StageZine - Recommended
"...As narrator, Mr. Mays gives us the insight and history of Ebenezer Scrooge. As actor he portrays: Scrooge, Marley, his partner in business, Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit and all the Cratchit children."
Daily Beast - Somewhat Recommended
"...Indeed, these visual tricks are so stunning that the story struggles. There’s the problem of knowing it, and despite Mays’ best efforts, finding a new way to say it, or tapping into a reach seam of characters that are so seared in the popular consciousness already."
Broadway News - Somewhat Recommended
"...English scribe Charles Dickens wrote more than 40 characters for his famed novella “A Christmas Carol.” In the latest theatrical adaptation playing Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, American actor Jefferson Mays tries his hand at all of them. Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim and the triad of Christmas ghosts get the Mays treatment in a spirited solo performance. Truncation is the only alteration to Dickens’ tale here, which Mays both narrates and occupies. The result is a theatrically ambitious but utterly aimless offering of holiday bah humbug."
Theatrely - Somewhat Recommended
"...Jefferson Mays can be, to put it mildly, a bit of a ham. But here, Mays brings a soft touch to a mammoth assignment. Shifting between multiple characters within the same scene, from ghost to narrator to Tiny Tim, he slides gracefully between personas with little more than a head tilt or the slightest of vocal modulations. There are a few grander moments as well, of course, but for the most part Mays keeps it grounded. His Fezziwig is an especially endearing creation, and his narrator’s open-heartedness is often moving in its own right."
New York Stage Review - Highly Recommended
"...What the endlessly imaginative group has created is a Christmas present so big it wouldn’t even fit under the storys-tall tree in Rockefeller Center. It requires much more capitalization than something like famous Christmas Carol-presenting Simon Callow standing at a lectern. Which is an observation meant to emphasize that the must-see package may not show up everywhere (or anywhere?) other than large houses where pounds and shillings flow."
