With the multitude of available stage adaptations of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," it's disappointing to note that the version now at Tenney Theatre is not up to the quality expected from the Honolulu Theatre for Youth.

The script by Barry Kornhauser might be serviceable enough, since the familiar story almost tells itself, and the added music and lyrics by Ron Barnett could spark new interest. But staging by HTY director Eric Johnson muddles when it should clarify.

For starts, more than half the dialogue is unintelligible.

The acting ensemble plays multiple roles and takes turns speaking narrative in story theater style, but few of them can manage British accents — which would be better abandoned.

Some of the dialogue and songs are produced through a badly managed sound system and subjected to reverberation that further obscures intelligibility. Voices that aren't amplified are much too small to reach beyond the first few rows. Unfamiliar lyrics to a mixture of contemporary and traditional melodies also suffer in performance.

But some of the new elements are promising.

The opening song has the chorus asking Scrooge (played with ample irascibility by Nathan Mark) how he came to be so scornful of Christmas. Scrooge responds with explosive, musical "Bahs!" at appropriate intervals. A pair of social workers plead for funds to the tune of "Good King Wenceslas," and nephew Fred (Kimo Kaona) is unremittingly cheerful — giving his uncle the smallest of his wrapped presents, which Scrooge immediately drops into a wastebasket.

For comedy's sake, Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig are played cross-gender, with towering Gavin Vinta looking properly ridiculous in Victorian drag.

Another comic touch has the Ghost of Christmas Present acting as a puppeteer to Scrooge as his manipulated marionette.

But the final staging goes mildly awry when the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come fails to make a personal appearance, and present and future scenes morph together of their own accord.

Despite its other problems, the production is visually satisfying.

Samantha Fromm's costumes and Kurt Wurmli's moveable set pieces create a satisfactory version of Dickens' London, occasionally shrouded in the gloom and fog of Bart MeGeehon's lighting design.

The production is aimed at audiences 5 and older. But it won't succeed as a child's first exposure to the story. For that, check out the classic black-and-white 1951 film "Scrooge," starring Alastair Sim. But stick close to your youngsters, as its best parts are genuinely bone-chilling.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek has reviewed theater performances in Hawai'i since 1973.