What? Yet another version of "A Christmas Carol"? Well, actually something of a spin-off. We have seen such before, done by theatrical mitosis, as when "Hamlet" split into itself and its twin, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.." Similarly, broadcast sit-coms often strobilate polyps like medusas. Thus too with Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic.

We once saw a Dickensian variation called "Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol" in which we learned all about the life and the posthumous times of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghostly chain-dragging business partner. "Not-So-Tiny-Tim’s Great Big Musical!" sounds from the title as though it could be something along those lines too: Minor characters step into the spotlight. But no, it is actually a strange kind of hybrid or mutation.

Now that the San Diego Repertory Theatre has, after many a winter, ceased producing its own annual "A Christmas Carol," one may suppose that the field here is wide open to all comers. (Although that was ever pretty much the case anyway.) Before the Rep’s series of Dickens dramatizations died (presumably from exhaustion) they had been ringing the changes on increasingly far-fetched concepts. A memorably clever one made Scrooge the cruel ringmaster of a circus. I suppose if they had carried on further, we might have ended up with, say, an underwater "Christmas Carol" or, next, Scrooge in outer space. (I bet it’s been done somewhere.) Didn’t "Gilligan’s Island" once do a Christmas episode with Thurston Howell III as Scrooge and Gilligan as Bob Cratchit? Or maybe I’m thinking of Mr. Magoo.

Vox Nova’s version – with book, music and lyrics all written by the troupe’s founder, artistic director, and resident Renaissance man Ruff Yeager – appears at first blush to concern itself with a grown-up Tiny Tim Cratchit. But instead, the character of that name turns out to be living in what seems to be contemporary San Diego and is the proprietor of a termite fumigation company where he lords it over his Mexican-American employee, Mr. Castillo, in a very Scrooge-like and miserly manner.

The explanation offered (and it did not entirely convince me) is that this adult Tiny Tim (played by rubberfaced Fred Harlow with his familiar comical repertoire of boggles, bumblings, bewilderments, and bluster) is an actor with a psychological personality identity syndrome nowhere catalogued in the DSM-IV. Yeager, as piano accompanist and initial narrator of the show, sings an introductory song, "The Line Between Life and Art" which diagnoses this mental disorder.

Our Tiny Tim when young, it seems, had been a child actor who played that role in "A Christmas Carol" so many times over that he first became imprinted with it and then apparently suffered an abreaction which caused him to act out as Scrooge instead. This Not-So-Tiny-Tim now divides his time between stingily tyrannizing the Castillo family and playing golf.

Pretty much the accustomed tale is then reënacted with updatings and substitutions. Instead of a visitation from Jacob Marley, Scrooge ... no, I mean Not-So-Tiny-Tim! ... is haunted late Christmas Eve by three different Scrooges – or rather, the ghosts of three actors who have played Scrooge in numerous past productions. In one of the show’s wittier scenes, the three squabbling Scrooge-actors compare credits as to where and how long each one of them had played the part. And then together they castigate N.S.T. Tim for his wicked ways in the trio number "The Script’s Gonna Hit the Fan."

Thereafter this Tiny Tim Actor’s Neurosis concept fairly falls by the wayside, seldom if ever to be invoked again, and the rough equivalent of the traditional story of "A Christmas Carol" (substituting the names Not-So-Tiny-Tim for Scrooge and Castillo for Cratchit) proceeds with many modern and local details and several more songs.

In addition to Harlow’s Not-So-Tiny Tim, a spirited ensemble of five more energetic players, directed by Susan Stratton, performs the rest of the twenty-three roles while singing and sometimes dancing fourteen original numbers (along with a few reprises).

Jason Connors adds an amusingly chipmunkish aspect to his several characterizations, and he is particularly droll as one of Tim’s faithless golfing buddies displaying wriggling body English as he sidles up to the tee.

Ria Carey seems in perpetually enthusiastic motion as a cookie-selling Girl Scout who morphs into an equally agitated Ghost of Christmas Past. Her patter song delivery of "The Girl Scout Law" is priceless.

John Martin has some of his best moments in the persona of an unctuous master-of-ceremonies who is variously Fezziwig leading the audience in a Christmas singalong or else the Ghost of Christmas Present revealing scenes of Yuletide cheer to Tim in the manner of a smarmy gameshow host unveiling prizes. Martin is also effective as Old Joe, the scoundrelly fence who receives the clothing purloined off the possibly dead Tim by Dilber (Carey) and the Cleaning Lady (Jessica Lerner). And the three of them do a relishable cabaret-style song-and-dance, "Lousy So-and-So," about the best number in the show.

Lerner also lends her mutable good looks to characters that range from Tim’s glamorous ex-girlfriend Belle to the mute and afflicted Rosita Castillo. And Olivia Espinosa capably covers a number of widely contrasting roles.

The songs are all enjoyable and the voices pleasant to hear, especially when they blend in the satisfying harmonies of the finale, "Sing Noel!" Mary Larson’s flexible costumes are inventive and appropriate. And while Ginger Harris’s set design is minimal, her lighting serves well in redefining the small stage space through the many transitions.

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