By the time Mercury Theater presented its dramatized version of A Christmas Carol, Barrymore was already a Christmas institution, having read the story on radio alone, without actors to aid him, for several years. What strikes us in this year's quest for some new dimension to the story is Dickens's treatment of Time itself. The story opens by fixing a time-the day and the hour. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already . Scrooge has his office door open, so he can keep his eye on Bob Cratchit, whose own eye is on the clock.
Closing time comes, and Scrooge shuffles home.
He undresses, eats his gruel, and then is visited by Marley's ghost. What makes Marley most frightening is that he appears at the wrong time. Being dead, his arrival is untimely and unnatural. From that moment on, Time plays tricks with Scrooge. The spirits come as promised.