Jack Maggs. Based on the novel by Peter Carey and adapted by Samuel Adamson.
Directed by Geordie
Brookman. Designed by Alisa Paterson. Lighting by Nigel Levings. Composer
Hilary Kleinig. Sound designer Andrew Howard. Accent coach Jennifer Innes.
Assistant director Annabel Matheson. Intimacy/ fight choreographer Ruth Fallon. Cast: Ahunim Abebe, Rachel Burke, Dale March,
Jelena Nicdao, Nathan O’Keefe, Jacquy Phillips, Mark Saturno, James Smith.
State Theatre Company of South Australia. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre
Centre. December 5-8 2024. Bookings www.canberratheatre.org.au
or 6257 2700.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
A light glares from the stage into the eyes of the audience.
In the shadows a troupe of actors warm up doing their stretches and vocal
exercises before the light is extinguished and the State Theatre Company of
South Australia’s production of Jack
Maggs begins. There is a pervasive theatricality to this touring production
of Samuel Adamson’s intriguing adaptation
of Peter Carey’s reimagining of Charles Dickens Great Expectations. Designer Alisa Paterson’s strikingly visual setting,
director Geordie Brookman’s physically robust staging and the company’s strong performances
evoke an aura of Victorian melodrama and vaudeville.
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| Mark Saturno as Jack Maggs |
Adamson’s adaptation drives the action forward narrated by Mercy Larkin (Ahunim Abebe ) and Magg’s desperate search for his dandy son Henry Phipps (Rachel Burke). Carey imagines the return of Pip’s benefactor and transported convict Magwitch to London after twenty five years in the penal colony of New South Wales. Mark Saturno’s performance as Jack Maggs is galvanizing, Dickens’s one dimensional and briefly drawn character becomes a tormented victim of past abuse and exploitation in Carey’s novel and brought to life in Adamson’s adaptation.
We empathize with Maggs’s predicament. As a child he was exploited
by the thief Silas. On his return he is exploited by the author Tobias Oates (James
Smith) as subject matter for his novel. Adamson weaves a complex pattern of themes
around his central narrative. Maggs returns to London to find his son. He gains
employment as a footman in the house of lawyer Percy Buckle (Nathan O’Keefe) )
next door to the house he bought for his son, who has disappeared. He offers to
assist the novelist Oates in return for help to find Henry Phipps. And yet, in
spite of the simplicity of the quest, the complexity of thematic allusions
compels attention. Carey, Adamson and
Brookman are all ex-pats perhaps confronting or questioning at times their true identity in
their adopted lands. It is Maggs who must confront his identity upon his return
after such a long time in an alien land. He finds himself rejected by the scornful
rebukes of Ma Britten (Jacquy Phillips) and thwarted in his quest by his former
compatriots. Reality and fantasy
intertwine in this beautifully staged adaptation of Carey’s enigmatic novel.
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| Ahunim Abebne as Mercy. Mark Saturno as Jack Maggs |
Brookman draws on vaudeville, melodrama and commedia to lend
the production a dynamic energy and drive that is joyfully embraced by an
excellent company of actors. The entire
production is a symphony of production elements that enhance the theatrical
experience. At times
the line between truth and fiction becomes blurred. Are the actors
players in a drama or characters in a fiction? Maggs’s monologue at the beginning of Act Two
gives context to his experience and the old Mercy Larkin, played by Phillips, congratulates
the actor Abebe playing her as a young woman at the close which helps to differentiate theatre
from reality. This is also helped by the Shakespearian devise of the letter to
the undiscovered Phipps. Letters in the drama often offer a convenient resolution.
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| Nathan O'Keefe as Percy Buckle |
Those with a knowledge of Great Expectations will be entertained by discovering the
references. However this is not necessary to become immersed in the State Theatre
Company of South Australia’s unfolding
tale of loss and grief and hopeful redemption. If you are able to see
this highly commendable production don’t miss out. If not seek out a copy of
Peter Carey’s novel. Reimagining events in novels is not original but Carey’s
idiosyncratic novel, Adamson’s lively and atmospheric adaptation and Brookman’s production make Jack Maggs an intriguingly novel theatrical experience.
Photos by Matt Byrne
