Reviewed
by Will Stackman
At
the center of this faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens' best known novel, "Oliver
Twist" is Ned
Eisenberg's
scenery chewing performance as Fagin, the mastermind of the gang of juvenile thieves.
This role, usually played as a version of Shylock in the period, was a favorite
of Victorian actor/managers. Indeed the novel was adapted for the stage before
the completion of its serial publication. Michael Wartella as the title character, young
Oliver, is also convincing as the eternal victim, even though he's hardly the
ten year old of the original.
ART
regulars, rotund Remo Airaldi as the Beadle Mr. Bumble, Karen MacDonald as the harridan who keeps the
workhouse and marries Mr. Bumble, Will LeBow as Mr. Brownlow, Oliver's
grandfather, and Thomas Derrah as Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker as well as Mr.
Grimwig, Brownlow's cynical friend, perform up to their usual high standard,
while also taking a number of minor roles. Lebow appears as the county
magistrate who allows the Bumbles to sell Oliver as an apprentice to the dour
Sowerberrys and Derrah is the judge from whom Brownlow rescues Oliver.
Notable
visiting artists include glowering Gregory Derelian as Bill Sykes -- sans dog. He
also plays Mrs. Sowerberry. Jennifer Ikea is doomed Nancy, the teenage prostitute who loves
him, and also appears in the first scene as Oliver's dead mother. Carson
Elrod is the
Artful Dodger, who starts the evening narrating Oliver's early days changing
into the young criminal during a fateful meeting with Oliver on the road to
London. Elizabeth Jasicki plays Charlotte Sowerberry and later Rose Brownlow.
Finally four main members of Fagin's band are uniformly convincing as they
morph from character to character, form a street band to play Gerald
McBurney's
original score on the violin, the hurdy-gurdy and the blaring serpent, as well
as joining the ensemble in musical interludes during which the cast sings short
setting of the author's prose commentary.
Designer
Rae Smith's
set is a unique combination of early Victorian popular theatricals, arcade
penny dreadful tableaus, toy theatre, and stylized gruesome melodrama. Banners
and signs fly in and out, trap doors open, and most of the action occurs in a
raised box set with mottled and stained walls. Her costumes are derived from
crude illustrations from the period, from rags on the poor, Nancy as a garish
trollop, padded Victorian caricatures for the Bumbles, and stylized upper class
for togs for the Brownlows. Neil Barrett's direction is marvelously choreographed with
moments of mock solemnity and frozen violence. Lighting by Scott Zielinski, who recently did "Three
Sisters" and "Dido, Queen of Carthage" for the ART, uses
theatrical effects to shift the mood. A.R.T's David Remedios' usual first-rate sound design
completes this revival of "Oliver Twist" which will next move to
NYC's Theatre for a New Audience.
Barrett's
approach could be loosely described as Brechtian, but really springs from the
similar melodrama sources and the diversity of Victorian theatrical expression.
Dickens was an ardent follower of popular entertainment, including it in
several of his novels. He got on the boards himself with his reading tours of
"A Christmas Carol." It's even been suggested that rather than
attempt to prevent premature productions of his serial novels, he paid close
attention to audience reactions and tailored his final chapters according to
their reactions. This production also attempts to include the author's moral
indignation at society's indifference to the suffering of the poor in Victorian
England by having the Dodger, who functions as the principal narrator, read
from the novel directly, including the fate of him and his compatriots. But of
course it's the looming force of Fagin, here played full-bore by Eisenberg
personifying greed combined by the recurring brutality exemplified by Bill
Sykes, that drives such a lesson home.