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, played as a version of Shylock, 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, Remo Airaldi as the Beadle Mr. Bumble, Karen MacDonald as the harridan who keeps the work house 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 standard, and also take a number of minor roles. LeBow appears as the county magistrate who allows the Bumbles to sell Oliver as an apprentice to the Sourberry and Derrah is the addled 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 and 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 until 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 morphs from character to character, form a street band to play Gerald McBurney's original score based on music hall tunes, and join the ensemble in choral interludes in which the entire cast sings short settings of the author's prose commentary.
Rae Smith's set is a unique combination of early Victorian popular theatricals, penny dreadful tableaus, toy theatre, and stylized grand Guignol. 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 drawn from crude illustrations from the time. From rags on the poor, Nancy as a garish trollop, padded Victorian caricatures for the Bumbles, and stylized upper class for togs for the Brown lows. Neil Barrett's direction is marvelously choreographed with moments of mock solemnity and frozen violence. Lighting by Scott Remedious, who recently did "Three Sisters" and "Dido, Queen of Carthage" for the ART, uses theatrical effects to shift the mood. David Remedios' usual first rate sound design complete this revival of "Oliver Twist" which will next move to NYC Theatre for a New Audience.
Barrett's approach could be loosely described as Brechtian, but really springs from the same 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 principle narrator, read from the novel directly. But of course it's the looming force of Fagin, here played fullbore by Eisenberg personifying greed combined by the recurring brutality exemplified by Bill Sykes, that drives such a lesson home.