A New Oliver Twist for Virginia Stage
Montague Gammon III
October 27, 2016
The βmusic drivenβ production of Oliver Twist that partners Virginia Stage Company and the Governorβs School for the Arts is not to be confused with the familiar show Oliver.
Thereβs more than one twist that turns this one away from the 1963 commercial show, though both are based on the same novel by Charles Dickens, and both end the same happy way for their title character.
This is a world premiere of a new adaptation, with a script by VSC Associate Producer Patrick Mullins and contemporary music by Jake Hull. (Mullins, who has been for many years responsible for annually re-staging the companyβs version of Dickensβ A Christmas Carol, promises that his version of Oliver Twist βuses mostly Dickensβ language.β)
Director Mullins β who was also responsible for the widely acclaimed Romeo/Juliet updated staging in 2009 β says the story is basically about βA boy who wants to get out of where he is but doesnβt really know where he is going.β Mullins describes the titular orphan boy as having βa sense of longing for a home [though] he does not really have an idea what that isβ¦he knows only the orphanage and the workhouse.β
He hopes to βdemonstrate what Oliver learnedβ in his foray from workhouse through the fringes of Londonβs underworld to eventual absorption into the middle class. βWe have to look for what else is out thereβ in addition to the story of Oliverβs rescue, Mullins says.
In what might be seen as a βheroβs journeyβ β the original novel was subtitled The Parish Boyβs Progress β Mullins sees resonances between the novelistβs social concerns and 21st Century issues of βclass and the plight of the worker,β of the privileges of βthe one percent.β
He likens the working world of England during the 19th Century late Industrial Revolution to a machine in which laborers were dehumanized parts, a machine that can βgrind themβ to pieces. Gangmaster Fagin, who runs the string of juvenile pickpockets into which Oliver is almost entrapped, is βone of the movers of a little section of that machine,β a sort of βPied Piper.β Mullins says this Faginwill be βunique.β
Oliver himself seems to be βkind of a leaf that floats down the river, pushed along through the system.β
Mullins describes the βyearning qualityβ of songwriter Jake Hullβs music as consistent with Oliverβs βlonging for a home.β (Hull was also responsible for the music that accompanied Mullinsβ 2014 Town Point Park production of The Tempest.) Mullins praises Hullβs βbeautiful way of writing songs of hope that are full of melancholy,β and of the Hullβs use of 19th Century sounds like the hurdy-gurdy, and of Victorian work songs. All serve to βilluminateβ the Dickens-Mullins story.
The director speaks especially highly of scenic and props designer Nehprii Amenii (whose other production credits include work with the Alvin Ailey company, Cirque du Soleil, LaMama Experimental Theater and Bread and Puppet Theatre) as a βvisual story tellerβ par excellence.
Like the Virginia Stage Companyβs Season 38 opening production of I Sing the Rising Sea, this new Oliver Twist was workshopped at Zeiders American Dream Theatre in Virginia Beach, whom Mullins calls βan important part of the community.β
The cast mixes professional Actors Equity performers with local actors and with Governorβs School students, a partnership that provides pro-level experience for the young actors, andsays Mullins, a βbetter castβ for Virginia Stage.
Oliver Twist
By Charles Dickens,
Adapted by Patrick Mullins
Music by Jake Hull
Virginia Stage Company
Oct. 28 β Nov. 13
at TCCβs Roper Performing Arts Center
340 Granby St., Norfolk
www.vastage.org
757-627-1234
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