It’s lean and stark, but powerful in a way that only community theatre can be.
Orcas audiences will be the first to watch a Book-It Repertory Theatre original adaption of one of Charles Dickens’ most revered novels: “Great Expectations.”
Featuring an all-local cast, Book-It founder and co-artistic director Jane Jones is leading the production. She says Dickens is her favorite writer, and the inspiration for creating Book-It, a Seattle-based company that is committed to staging great works of literature.
“I hope to work through many more of his books,” Jones said. “He was considered the voice of the people.”
This stage version of “Great Expectations” was adapted by Julie Beckman. The play, which will be performed October 15 to 17 and 22 to 24, is a workshop for a later Seattle world premiere.
“I told Julie I wanted it lean,” Jones said. “The goods are in the relationships Pip has. Dickens is not easy reading; it takes a time commitment. You have to be willing to wrap your brain around the structure and the writing. Julie has done a good job of keeping so much of the original Dickens but making it cleaner and leaner.”
“Great Expectations” features hauntingly memorable characters. Miss Havisham, played by Mary Bayley, is the bitter woman who was left at the altar and seeks to invoke suffering on men as revenge. Pip is the boy who was plucked out of his working class home by an anonymous patron to be raised as “a gentleman,” and at the machinations of Miss Havisham, falls in love with the beautiful and cruel Estella, played by Jules Mann. In a break from tradition, Pip is being portrayed by a woman: Jamie Mulligan-Smith. The cast is rounded out by seven other local actors: Bryan Grantham, David Schermerhorn, Donna McCoy, Halley McCormick, Freddy Hinkle, Ron Herman, and Sukima Hampton.
“Great Expectations” is broken into three “books.” This adaption will draw from book one and three, skipping book two, which covers Pip’s time in London. Act One will be fully staged, while Act Two will be a music-stand reading only.
Jones has been staying on the island since Labor Day, and she brought Elena Hartwell from Seattle to work on the lighting. Jones says the biggest challenge has been lack of time with the cast.
“We started late in the summer and people are still on their summer schedules,” Jones said. “I’ve had the entire cast together only once. In Seattle, I get about 236 hours from first rehearsal to opening night. I’ll be lucky if I get 40 to 50 hours for this performance.”
But Jones says the challenge is also the reward.
“The actors are being asked to jump and leap and be vulnerable, especially because the script is changing daily,” she said. “It’s about reaching higher and higher, which they are doing, and the epiphany of creation. So many people have been coming out to volunteer. It’s been a real eye-opener for me: what the force of a small group of people can do.”
The sets are minimal, but Jones says “you can do a lot with an empty stage.”
“You will truly see a process going on,” she said. “It’s fully fleshed out in the first act, and by hearing it read in the second act, you’ll understand how much focus it took to make act one work.”
In her 20 years of staging literature, Jones has performed and directed works by such literary giants as Eudora Welty, Edith Wharton, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Pam Houston, Raymond Carver, Frank O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway, Colette, Amy Bloom, John Irving, John Steinbeck, Daphne du Maurier, and Jane Austen. Orcas Center artistic director Barbara Courtney had wanted Jones to produce an adaption on Orcas for several years, and it became possible this year.
“I am working harder than I have in a really long time,” said Jones, who is used to a large cast of professional actors and a production team. “This is a much more concentrated effort by fewer people. I’m even making the actors learn the dialect!”
Jones says the greatest reward will be if audience members leave the performance with a desire to read the book.
“That’s what Book-It is all about,” she said.
Performances
“Great Expectations” will be performed Thursday through Saturday, October 15 to 17 and 22 to 24. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. except for the final performance on Saturday, Oct. 24, which is a 2 p.m. matinee. A study and discussion guide is posted on the Orcas Center website for use by teachers and their students, and by book clubs.
Tickets for the play are $16, $12 for Orcas Center members, and $8 for students. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.orcascenter.org or call or 376-2281 ext. 1 during box office hours, Thursday to Saturday, noon to 4 p.m.
