Program Essay for "Great Expectations"
Youthful Promise and Mature Revelation
by Thomas Canfield
Often regarded as the greatest masterpiece and darkest creation of Charles Dickens, Great Expectations was first published as a weekly serial between 1860 and 1861. His thirteenth novel was well received by Victorian audiences in England and the United States, and remains one of his most popular titles today. Those familiar with Dickens’s life have noted the semi-autobiographical nature of the plot, second only to David Copperfield (1849-50) in this respect.
Both stories belong to the genre of the bildungsroman, a German literary term used to designate a novel that outlines the moral, psychological, and intellectual education of a young protagonist. In Great Expectations, Dickens traces the development and maturation of Philip Pirrip, more commonly known as Pip, throughout his formative years. The audience’s introduction to this innocent, unsophisticated orphan occurs in the isolated marsh country of Kent, but after the “expectations” of his financial and social conditions are improved dramatically by a mysterious, unknown benefactor, we follow Pip to the cosmopolitan–and often morally bankrupt–streets of London to pursue his fortunes as an ambitious young gentleman.
Along the way, Pip encounters a cast of unforgettable characters inhabiting all levels of society, and Dickens’s astute mastery of human observation and description is one element that makes his tales so exceptionally timeless. The audience meets the “bonneted fury” of Mrs. Joe, Pip’s elder sister who raises him “by hand” and is constantly on “the Ram-Page,” resentful her station in life as the wife of a simple blacksmith. Other remarkable characters include Abel Magwitch, a hardened convict sentenced for prison ship transport to a penal colony in Australia; the wealthy, reclusive heiress Miss Havisham who, clothed in her rotten wedding dress and locked in time, perennially awaits her nuptials in the shadows of Satis House, her crumbling estate, with the clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine and her bridal cake on the table; and Mr. Jaggers, an idiosyncratic London lawyer harboring several dark secrets that are key to the plot’s resolution.
Against the backdrop of these colorful, eccentric figures, Dickens unravels the progress of Pip’s eventual fortunes. Far from being merely a coming-of-age story detailing the search for self-identity and the social acceptance of one’s betters, Great Expectations contains elements of lively comedy, sensational mystery, spirited adventure and even poignant love. True to actual life, the story of Pip’s expectations is bittersweet in its ultimate revelation, which may explain why Dickens wrote two separate endings for the novel. The first, harsher, ending was true to Dickens’s artistic sensibilities, while the revised ending, in “happily ever after” fashion, was intended to satisfy the demands of popular opinion and taste.
It is a testament to Dickens’s art that this novel, with differing levels of success, has been adapted for the stage and screen over 250 times since its original publication. In fact, the first dramatic version of the play, an inferior, pirated three-act version by an anonymous author, appeared in 1861, the same year that the novel was originally published. Dickens himself had an early and lifelong love of the theatre and was an amateur actor, director, costume designer and stage manager for several productions throughout the 1840s and 50s. He also founded an amateur dramatic company that performed twice for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and his early theatrical training contributed greatly to the success of his public readings in the latter half of his career. First and foremost an entertainer, Dickens tirelessly undertook reading tours of Britain and the United States that more closely resembled extraordinary exhibitions of acting, according to one biographer. It often has been noted that theatrical characters and situations abound in his works, and easily lend themselves to dramatization.
Although many stage adaptations of Great Expectations depart radically from the plot of the novel, it seems highly probable that Dickens would have approved of the dramatization used for this production, which was created in 2006 by Neil Bartlett. An award-winning and internationally renowned director, playwright, translator, novelist and performer, Bartlett is no stranger to Dickens, having also adapted Dickens’s Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol for stage performance–in addition to much other innovative and remarkable theatre work. In his adaptation of Great Expectations, Bartlett has pared down the numerous plot twists of the novel into 39 scenes, crystallizing the essence of the original story and its central characters. Using only Dickens’s original language as a basis for the play’s dialogue, Bartlett captures and sustains the true spirit of the novel as a whole, bringing it to life and fulfilling the “great expectations” of even the most discerning Dickensian sensibility.
