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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Top tax delinquents in Oregon include four from Jackson County ... Wet March expected for southwest Oregon ... Emergency Services ... Top tax delinquents in Oregon include four from Jackson County ... Wet March expected for southwest Oregon ... Emergency Services ... THEATER REVIEW OSF's 'Great Expectations' captures spirit of Dickens Comment By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Feb. 29, 2016 at 3:35 PM Updated Feb 29, 2016 at 3:47 PM By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Feb. 29, 2016 at 3:35 PM Updated Feb 29, 2016 at 3:47 PM » Social News How do you turn a sprawling novel of 59 chapters into a play? The world premiere adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” that opened Saturday night in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Angus Bowmer Theatre uses narration. Adapters Penny Metropulos and Linda Alper have said they wanted to create atmosphere through language, because OSF's Elizabethan stage — the play’s original intended home — doesn’t have the scenic capabilities of a theater such as the Bowmer. When the play was moved to the Bowmer, they decided to keep the narration. If you’re a bit foggy on a book you probably haven’t read since high school or college, the narration does have the virtue of helping to fill in the gaps as you follow nearly 20 actors, a half dozen of them doubling as multiple characters and eight of them stepping out of character here and there to tell the story. Pip, a poor orphan, is being raised by his mean older sister and her kind husband, Joe. Pip shows kindness to an escaped convict. He visits the strange recluse Miss Havisham. He falls for her cold, young ward, Estella. He feels shame and dreams of becoming a gentleman. A mysterious inheritance, his great expectation, plunks him down in London to do just that. Years pass. It turns out growing up means learning some tough lessons. Benjamin Bonenfant’s wide-eyed Pip is energetic and convincing, although sometimes a bit sympathetic for one whose embrace of false values provides the through-line of the story. Judith-Marie Bergan’s Miss Havisham is stunningly vengeful. As Estella, Nemuna Ceesay has a heart of stone. The convict Magwitch doesn’t have a lot of stage time, but Derrick Lee Weeden is riveting when he’s on. One of the few characters who isn’t misleading either others or himself is the lawyer Mr. Jaggers, played by Michael Elich with flinty-eyed relish. As the nasty Mrs. Joe, Erica Sullivan injects some humor. Wemmick, played by Richard Howard, is a different man in Jaggers’ office than at home, where he plays at living in a castle and cares for Aged Parent, a role in which Cristofer Jean is a hoot. Metropulos, who directed, moves the large cast deftly around Collette Pollard’s set, which consists of two ramps running at angles across a stage backed by abstract horizontal forms that act as a canvas for Jaymi Lee Smith’s impressionistic lights. Add it up and the play catches much of the novel’s spirit. That’s no small feat. And no surprise, because Metropulos/Alper collaborations created a lot of superb theater for the festival through the years before both moved on. “Tracy’s Tiger” (2007) springs to mind. But despite strong acting and some powerful scenes, “Great Expectations” never rises to that level of stage magic, and I think that’s about the narrators. We question the reliability of narrators (thank Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield and Baron Munchausen, others). Yes, Pip narrates the novel, but that enables him to reveal himself, warts and all. These narrators don’t do that. Nor are they part of the story like Tom in “The Glass Menagerie” or the stage manager in “Our Town.” They are a sort of free-floating, collective consciousness that calls attention to the story as an artifact, introducing a distracting hint of meta-theater even as they slow the action. But if the narration is a flaw, it’s not a fatal one. “Great Expectations” has some fine moments and remains a powerful entertainment. It will find a wide audience, and it deserves to. You just wish it had done so with a little less telling and a little more showing. Reach Medford freelancer Bill Varble at varble.bill @gmail.com. By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Feb. 29, 2016 at 3:35 PM Updated Feb 29, 2016 at 3:47 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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