“People never change.”

How many times have we said that about a friend or a relative, knowing we must love them as they are — that the hope of significant change may be as elusive as the Cubbies winning the World Series.

And yet many of us practice religions founded upon the hope of changed lives, and our most-popular Christmas story is, at its heart, a tale of transformation.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “A Christmas Carol” in how many incarnations, beginning, in my childhood, with “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” I admit that’s still a sentimental favorite, despite the absurdity of being introduced to one of the world’s great novelist’s by a scrunch-faced cartoon character.

How could any performance of this beloved, overfamiliar classic possibly be revelatory?

The secret is Yellow Springs’ own Bruce Cromer, one of our region’s true theatrical treasures. Here’s the man, after all, who convincingly portrayed all the characters — including Juliet — in the Dayton Philharmonic’s recent concert, Romeo, Juliet and Prokofiev. And his performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in the Cincinnati Playhouse’s current production is making me see “A Christmas Carol” in a whole new light.

Cromer, 54, is very tuned into the theme of transformation, both in his personal and professional life. His heroes are people such as Alec Guinness and Johnny Depp, “actors who aren’t afraid of transformation and try to do it believably.”

Cromer and his wife, Carol, are empty-nesters for the first time; Elliot, the youngest of their three sons, is a freshman film student at Kenyon College. “Carol and I are thinking who are we now and what is next,” Cromer said. “And this production is definitely a spiritual journey. Scrooge is like a Zen novice who meets Buddhas on the road. I like this version because it’s very painful for Scrooge to go through this.”

That’s exactly what I found so fresh about Cromer’s funny and affecting performance. Naturally, you have to suspend your disbelief on all sorts of levels when you watch “A Christmas Carol” — less so with the visitation of the three spirits, perhaps, than with a protagonist who changes literally overnight. Nobody, but nobody, does that — even those with the fortitude and persistence to achieve personal growth.

Making it work

Yet Cromer makes his Scrooge work for it, in ways that are both humorous and touching, such as the bit where he reluctantly parts with his first shilling, offering and retracting it and trying to shake it off as if it were glued to his fingers. In another scene, Cromer comically mimics a young boy teaching him to say “Merry Christmas!” trying out the phrase like a primate learning to speak in human tongue.

The rest of the cast also transcends pat interpretations. As Scrooge’s nephew Fred, Craig Wesley Divino barely conceals his pain beneath his hail-fellow-well-met exterior. “He’s a brilliant actor — he’s warm, he’s human, and he’s hurt he cannot reach his only living relative. My challenge is to portray realistically anyone who has ever had a relative they’ve hated, and I have to find something that makes that hate go away.”

Cromer is playing Scrooge for the seventh year. He portrayed Bob Cratchit for eight years before that. “It’s a cash cow for so many theaters,” he acknowledges. “The challenge is to tell the story clearly and believably.”

After the performance, the actors sang Christmas carols in their Victorian garb and collected donations for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, and patrons lined up to drop their dollars into Tiny Tim’s hat.

Noted Cromer, “Dickens shows the worst side of human beings but also shows that what we’re capable of. There are opportunities every day when you could help someone and you never know the implications for them.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty @DaytonDailyNews.com.