Review of Ashton Hayes Theatre Club’s
production of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens adapted & directed by
Yvette Owen
I attended
this production of the Dickens’ classic at Tarvin Community Centre on the final
Friday of the run. The cast played to a full house in a well laid out seating
and staging arrangement.
Yvette Owen’s
adaptation is set in the 1920’s with sharp but very effective emphasis on the
styles and clothing fashions of the time. We are taken seamlessly through the
80 years that make up Pip’s life reflecting the form of each period throughout
the play, of particular interest was the addition of, often vibrant, colour to
both men’s and women’s wardrobes of the time.
Though some of the larger than life characters provided
opportunities for humour, however 'Great Expectations' is not a bundle of
historic fun. It is often poignant, sad and not a little depressing at times.
But that is what makes this a compelling story, and the audience on Friday seemed
hypnotically engaged by both the story, the music (yes music in a Dickens play)
and this meticulously-directed and worthy adaptation of a much loved classic
novel. I admit I had reservations about the period setting for the first few
scenes of the play, but those quickly passed and I found the story and its
setting totally absorbing too.
The play is set in the same Kent countryside
and London that that
Dickens originally set this, his the thirteenth novel, first published as
a serial in Dickens' weekly periodical ‘All
the Year Round’, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. The coming-of-age
novel by Charles Dickens was originally set almost one hundred years before our
adaption here in the Tarvin Community Centre. The main location, most of us will
recall, is Miss Havisham's house where the set is both evocative and impressively
detailed with everything encapsulated in time, here we find the remnants of a
wedding which never happened and a bitter jilted bride. This set forms the
centre piece on stage both literally and from the set design and layout perspective.
To the left of stage is the set that Pip’s sister and her husband Joe inhabit
as part of Joes’ blacksmiths shop. To the right of the stage is a set more
adaptable to hosting the numerous other facets of this stage play. These three
distinct areas of set have one thing in common, they are designed and laid out
with simplicity but with great attention to detail and reflect the period very
effectively, in turn introducing this atypical period setting easily to the
audience and embedding it as intrinsic part of this adaptation from the very
opening scene.
Phillip Pirrup, nicknamed Pip, played
by Charlie Auckland-Lewis (young Pip), Dan Aynsley and Mike Melville (old Pip)
is an orphan living with his ‘at best unwelcoming’ sister and her blacksmith
husband Joe. Each of the actors brought their own personal touch to Pip’s
character, Auckland- Lewis plays an engrossing scene early on in the play
alongside Stuart McNeil as Magwitch, Aynsley’s excellence was in bringing the
emotional and romantic element of Pip alive and Melville was simply outstanding
with his silvery delivery of the narrative as we passed from scene to scene
throughout Pip’s 80 years. Melville opens with “The human heart is a wonderful
organ. If nurtured the heart has the capacity to bring great happiness to
anyone brought under its wing. But mistreat or starve it of love and it may
shatter into a thousand pieces and leave a swathe of destruction in its wake.” These
opening are scenes set on the Kent marshes and were given authenticity through
the cleverly supporting sound effects of curlew calling along with other marsh
birds transporting the audience to the very edges of those imaginary reed beds.
Pip’s unplanned and violent meeting
with Magwitch is in these opening stages of the play at the graveyard and is
significant in as much as the small unsolicited act of kindness in bringing Magwitch
some cake is an abiding memory for its recipient.
Pip first encounters Miss
Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, whose beauty and haughtiness is brought
alluringly to the audiences attention by Grace Owen’s skillful acting, in the
time capsule that is Miss Havisham’s house. She makes no bones about clearly
telling Pip that he is coarse and common. However Pip is already in love with
her and keen to point out (in a move away from the original) that he has his
own expectations of becoming a recognised writer. When a mysterious benefactor
allows Pip to move to London and become a gentleman, he hopes to win over
Estella and achieve a wealthy, enviable life through his writing. This ambition
is a golden thread that weaves though this adaptation very neatly and provides
Pip with a little more purpose than in the original novel.
For me the play brought the topics
of rural poverty, love and in particular the human approach to our emotions of guilt and forgiveness to the fore,
particularly the need to forgive one’s self.
The cast and storytelling were further enhanced by the four
well chosen, modern and professionally sung songs at key points of the play.
The choristers came from three local choirs and collectively sung beautifully
with a well balanced cast of sotto voce and orotund voices. The scene at the
society ball supported by the lyrics of Moby’s “Be the One” was very emotive
and worked tremendously well for me.
The story progresses through as we would expect with many
short scenes delivering as much to the audience of the original novel as you
can reasonably expect to get in to an 80 minute play. None were too short I
would suggest to those who were familiar to the novel, but may have been for
those who were not able to relate it to past exposure to Great Expectations.
The second half of the play was trumped by the excellent scene of the
revelation of Pip’s benefactor played brilliantly by McNeil, Magwitch loves
Pip with a simple heart, and, having had a chance to return to the basic
tenderness that was always within him, is able to die with dignity and peace
knowing he had done his upmost to repay Pip for his kindness all those years
ago in the graveyard.
Meanwhile Pip’s originally unrequited love is beginning to
bear fruit as Estella slowly reveals a softer, more affectionate side after all
the years of callousness ingrained in to her by Miss Havisham. As Estella
realises her true feelings towards Pip, an emotional heart gripping line is
delivered by Owen ‘My heart maybe broken in to many pieces but I love him with
every single one of those tiny pieces.’ We know now that Pip’s unfaltering love
for Estella is finally going to bring the two of them together.
The closing scene of the play is very simple in its design
and execution but quite brilliantly pulls each of the raw threads of emotion we
have been experiencing as an audience together in a coming to consciousness
about the numerous mistakes we are all apt to make within our own lives. Old
Pip and old Estella along with young Pip and young Estella both appear as
couples centre stage in a warm embrace with each other, succinctly summarising
their long and tortuous path of love and despair with just about every other human
emotion in between.
The cast of 18 (not
including the singers) all delivered their own excellent personal performances to
bring each of the characters acutely in to focus and collectively delivered what
was an outstanding evening’s entertainment and a very professional performance of
an adaptation of a classic novel which should never have worked on paper, let
alone the stage. But it did, and did so brilliantly. Maybe this production
should make its way to our new theatre ‘The Story House’ in Chester as its next
stop!
Reviewed by
Hugo Deynem
17th March 2017
