Looking like a cross between former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Anton Ego from “Ratatouille,” the actor Christopher Donahue takes his place at the center of the Goodman Theatre’s long-running “A Christmas Carol,” and dives so deeply into the psyche of Ebenezer Scrooge that small children near me could be seen shuddering on opening night at the depths of his meanness. Donahue is one of the great veteran Chicago actors and it was pretty clear, 10 minutes in, that the Goodman had made an inspired casting choice when it came to replacing the near-eternal Scrooge, Larry Yando, who was coaxed off to Hogwarts by the “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” show playing at the Nederlander Theatre across the street. (Yando’s splendid Snape and Dumbledore combo there has some homages to the old Dickensian man, a combo of those two characters in one). If Yando was at his best in the giddy moments of reformation, Donahue’s tour de force moments are in the first scene as he fights off Christmas like a hedgerow fending off kudzu. Anthony Irons, who plays Bob Cratchit, is a droll physical actor and the pair of them offer a rich picture of office misery. Talk about an advertisement for working at home. Many people wrongly think Scrooge just flips a switch. But that’s not what Dickens intended. Ebenezer is a tough case, and Scrooge comes around by witnessing one moral lesson at a time, and the acting job is to show a kind of accelerating reformation as the spirits do their Christmas night thing. That’s exactly what Donahue delivers, with more tragedy than comedy, and I swear he’s come up with a motivation for every moment. He also added a new pause between “bah” and “humbug,” allowing his seasonal opprobrium to cure in the air like a glass of mulled wine before he spits out the “humbug” like a piece of candy stuck in his throat. Delicious. Now in its 47th year, “A Christmas Carol” at this juncture is a hybrid of old-fashioned, analog pageant (this physical production is now two decades old) and some fresh tweaks from the most recent director, Jessica Thebus. The show itself has enough of a history to have its own internal traditions (for example, the musicians Malcolm Ruhl and Gregory Hirte have been in the cast for some quarter of a century), but it’s the same old adaptation and the same tired pushcarts with fake poultry that get trucked out each year, even if other scenic elements get reshuffled. Still, some show newcomers are real enhancements, including Kate Fry, who now shoulders most of the narrative duties, and Bri Sudia, hilarious as Scrooge’s less-than-loyal housekeeper. Tafadzwa Diener, Christopher Donahue, Arash Fakhrabadi and Jalbelly Guzmán, with Lucky Stiff (above), in the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)Malcolm Ruhl, Mark Bedard, Isabel Ackerman, Henry Lombardo, Xavier Irons, Kate Fry, Viva Boresi, Jazzlyn Luckett Aderle, Ava Rose Doty, Gregory Hirte and Bri Sudia in the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)Christopher Donahue and Anthony Irons in the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)The cast of the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)Christopher Donahue as Scrooge in the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)Show Caption1 of 5Tafadzwa Diener, Christopher Donahue, Arash Fakhrabadi and Jalbelly Guzmán, with Lucky Stiff (above), in the 2024 holiday production of "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre. (Liz Lauren)Expand Donahue was central to the vision of Mary Zimmerman’s famed contributions to Chicago theater and, over the last few years, Thebus, who is of the same cloth, has created some more fluid elements of storytelling, adding puppets and making the show lighter on its feet and less stuck in the Victorian world of figgy pudding and carols, although you can tell the Goodman worries about going too far, and rightly so. Nobody wants a bait-and-switch, but the pre-digital physical production and the adaptation could benefit from an overhaul. The work is in the public domain; the Goodman’s new artistic leadership could do whatever it wants. And there’s new downtown competition at the Studebaker Theater, where Manual Cinema also has a more radical “Christmas Carol,” repurposed for the modern world. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. [email protected] Review: “A Christmas Carol” (3 stars) When:  Through Dec. 30 Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Tickets: $25-$159 at 312-443-3800 and goodmantheatre.org