Victory — not the concept, but the statue at State Place and 17th Street NW — is the Ghost of Christmas Past. Freedom — the Eastward-facing statue atop the Capitol Dome; not that thing that The Terrorists hate us for — is the Ghost of Christmas Present. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives draped in the inky robes of Grief.

This stunt-casting of local landmarks as Charles Dickens’ familiar trio of yuletide apparitions neatly sums up Arena Stage’s world-premiere kinda-musical, A Christmas Carol 1941, a handsome, if uneven, localized update of the perennial seat-filler you can see in at least two other playhouses around town just now. Set in the weeks immediately after Japan invited the U.S. into World War II with their attack on Pearl Harbor, the show looks into the opportunistic heart of one Ebenee – er, Elijah Strube (James Gale), a profiteer who made his fortune hoarding supplies during the first World War. To Strube, the show-opening radio address from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, calling the nation once more to sacrifice, sounds like nothing more than the opening bell of a particularly promising day of trading.

James Magruder’s script makes other tweaks to Dickens’ venerable tale: Tiny Tim is now either the mute, shellshocked WWI vet Albert Schroen (a soulful Christopher Bloch), or else Albert’s underage-but-eager-to-enlist nephew, Butch (Clinton Brandhagen), whose mother, Margarette (Nancy Robinette), is opposed to him answering the call of duty. Standing in for Bob Cratchitt and spouse are Henry and Margarette Schroen, named for and based on Magruder’s grandparents. Because Henry (played here by a sturdy Lawrence Redmond) could type 120 words per minute, he remained employed throughout the Great Depression.

Mean old Elijah Strube (James Gale, foreground) digs the Reason for the Season from Grief (Bayla Whitten), Freedom (Connan Morrissey) and Winged Victory (Gia Mora) in Arena’s A Christmas Carol 1941.