HOLIDAY THEATER REVIEWS : A Double Bill at American Renegade

The lingering image from “Next Stop, Christmas,” at the American Renegade Theatre in North Hollywood, is a toy steam engine sitting on a curving track in front of a gaily decorated tree.

It’s a warm, living room touch that cozily informs C.J. Bau’s solo nostalgic piece, “A Pittston Christmas,” in which Bau re-creates an Italian American Noel in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town of the early ‘40s. Even the tree has a mustiness about it, as if it, too, had been plucked out of an old cardboard box.

Bau’s low-key performance, redolent of long-ago boyhood, serves as a likable opening to the evening’s second act, a one-hour “A Christmas Carol.” The adaptation by Cora Wilson Greenwood is faithful to the spirit of Dickens’ characters, richly costumed and on occasion vocally resplendent. But the execution is uneven. A few fine portraits are offset by others in which the lines are too often merely mouthed instead of believed and felt.

* “Next Stop, Christmas,” American Renegade Theatre, 11305 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, Friday, Saturday, 8 p.m.; Thursday, Sunday, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 19. $10 adults, $5 children under 14. (818) 763-4430. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

This selection of holiday stage reviews is by The Times ‘ theater writers.