Review: Great Expectations (Strawdog Theatre)

  
  
Great Expectations

Adapted by Gale Childs Daly  
Directed by Jason Gerace
at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway (map)
thru Dec 22  |  tickets: $28   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
   Read review
  

---

Strawdog performs the unexpected in epic Dickens’ classic

Strawdog Theatre presents

Great Expectations

Review by John Olson

Speaking of expectations, it seems that the one sort of venue one wouldn’t expect to find an adaptation of a big, sprawling novel like Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations would a storefront theater. Yet, here it is at Strawdog’s spacious and comfortable (by storefront standards) second-story space, with just six actors playing forty characters. Actually, it’s more telling and impressive to call it five actors playing 39 characters – Mike Tepeli as Pip is the only one of the six actors who plays only one part. Working from an adaptation by Milwaukee-based playwright Gale Childs Daly, the six actors directed by Jason Gerace barrel through the 700-page novel of the 19th Century London orphan boy who is given a fortune by a mysterious benefactor in just over two hours, and they tell it with surprising clarity. Despite the fact that there’s little help in terms of costumes or sets to distinguish between each of the multiple characters played by any given actor, the cast manages to create distinct characters quite effectively.

Best of all is Kyle A. Gibson, who plays such different parts as the convict Abel Magwitch, the comical uncle Mr, Pumblechook, and the barrister Mr. Jaggers. To make these transitions, Gibson transforms his walk, voice and gestures instantly, making it immediately clear we’re seeing someone else. John Ferrick and John Taflan as Pip’s brother-in-law Joe Gargery and Pip’s friend Herbert Pocket are distinctive in those two roles but have bigger challenges in taking on some of the less colorful and distinctive male roles they also play. Amanda Drinkall and Megan Kohl play all the female roles. Megan Kohl as the mysterious and creepy Miss Havisham is always hidden behind the wedding veil and gown she has worn since being left at the altar decades earlier, so there’s no mistaking her. The differences in demeanor between the icy, emotionally unavailable Estella and the warm Biddy, both played by Amanda Drinkall, are told all through the acting. The cast creates fully-realized characters in the brief moments they have on stage and master the English accents, with Tepeli a very earnest and likable Pip.

Ms. Daly’s script relies heavily on narration – not surprisingly as the novel is told in first person as well. Pip is the primary narrator, but Daly gives narration to the other actors as well, often alternating lines within paragraphs. It gets the story across – and as a first timer to Great Expectations in any medium, I was surprised to catch most of the plot watching it cold as I did. I did miss the age of Pip at the beginning of the story – he’s supposed to be six but as played by Tepeli he seemed 12 or 13 at the youngest.

It all happens so quickly, there’s not much time for costume changes – the actors aren’t able to do much more than add or remove coats or other accessories in Brittany Dee Bodley’s costumes. No time for scene changes, either, but Joanna Iwanicka’s set – a pair of bookshelves that rotate around to reveal cabinets and contain doors that are at times suggestive of room or building doors help to establish place. The only other set piece is a large wooden table center stage.

The actors give the roles a fine, classically toned reading worthy of Masterpiece Theater, and are to be commended for their work. There’s something sort of exhausting about it all though, as they rush through the dense story and (however amazingly) change characters in seconds that, in the end, it feels rather stunt-like. Sort of a, “let’s see if it can be done,” rather than “this a new way to tell the story that will brings something unique to it” Is Dickens story, originally published in serial form, best told in a fast-forward mode? Maybe it works as a replaying of great moments in the story for those more familiar with it than I am. It’s certainly a more enjoyable way to be introduced to Great Expectations than reading the Cliff Notes, and maybe a faster way as well.

Rating: ★★★

Great Expectations continues through December 22nd at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 4pm.  Tickets are $28, and are available by phone (773-528-9696) or online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at Strawdog.org.  (Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes, includes an intermission)

Photos by Chris Ocken 

---

artists

cast

Mike Tepeli (Pip), Amanda Drinkall, John Ferrick, Kyle A. Gibson, Megan Kohl, John Taflan (ensemble); Hilary Holbrook (musician)

behind the scenes

Jason Gerace (director), Joanna Iwanicka (scenic designer), John Kelly (lighting designer), Brittany Dee Bodley (costume designer), Emily Guthrie (props designer), Sam Hubbard (fight choreographer), Michelle Maier (stage manager), Kathy Logelin (dialect coach), Mike Przygoda (music director), Mike Mroch (production manager), Gordon Granger (technical director), Smooch Medina (master electrician), Rebecca Spooner (assistant director, dramaturg), Danielle Whaley (assistant production, stage manager), Kate Hardiman (assistant lighting designer), KBH Media (video), Chris Ocken (photos).

13-1122