Cricket on the Hearth

Life isn't easy for John and Dot Peerybingle, but it's happy. He's a middle-aged delivery man in nineteenth-century London, where poverty is only a misstep away, but the love of his young wife and their new son are more than enough. Their good friend, Caleb, and his blind daughter, Bertha, aren't so happy; Caleb works for a mean-spirited miser named Tackleton, and his only son Edward has disappeared on a voyage to South America and is presumed dead. Tackleton has decided to marry Edward's fiancée, May, which really knocks the wind out of Caleb. When an odd boarder shows up at John and Dot's, things really start to go downhill. Mysterious strangers, Christmas, names like Peerybingle? This must be the work of Charles Dickens, and it is. Dickens' Christmas novella Cricket on the Hearth has been adapted for the stage by Vladimir Zelevinsky. This new version of the story is presented by West End Players Guild at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (November 6 to 15) at the Union Avenue Christmas Church (733 North Union Boulevard; www.westendplayers.org). Tickets are $20 to $25.