Reviewed by Judy Richter
It has been more than 20 years since David Edgar's adaptation of Charles Dickens' "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Parts One and Two" has been seen on a professional American stage. It also has been slightly more than 20 years since its only Bay Area incarnation, a nonprofessional production by College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield. Now California Shakespeare Theater takes on the challenge of the bringing the sprawling Victorian novel to the stage. It rises to that challenge most successfully.
Co-directed by Jonathan Moscone, artistic director, and Sean Daniels, associate artistic director, the 23-member cast enacts Part One with sustained energy and great skill. Edgar has been in residence with the company to adapt the play to a smaller cast than the original 40 and to pare the total time down to about 6 1/2 hours from the original 8 1/2 hours. He was at the opening of Part One on July 16.
The play begins impressively with all 23 actors parading onto the expansive stage (fluid set by Neil Patel), then quickly launches into the story of young Nicholas Nickleby (Stephen Barker Turner); his sister, Kate (Susannah Schulman); and their mother (Nancy Carlin) after their father's death forces them to appeal to their uncle, Ralph (James Carpenter), for help. The rich but unfeeling Ralph secures Nicholas a job at a school for boys in Yorkshire and Kate a job at a milliner's shop, but there's no end to their travails. Nicholas is appalled to find that the school run by Mr. Squeers (Andy Murray) and his wife (Domenique Lozano) is nothing more than a place for unwanted boys who are underfed and abused. One of them, the deformed Smike (Clifton Guterman), especially captures Nicholas' sympathy. When Squeers beats Smike for running away, Nicholas intercedes, beats Squeers and flees with Smike.
In the meantime, Kate's job with the milliner, Madame Mantalini (Catherine Castellanos), and her foppish, profligate husband (Danny Scheie), doesn't go well either, and things get even worse when Ralph invites her to a dinner where she is lewdly accosted by Sir Mulberry Hawk (Murray). By then, Nicholas and Smike have joined a traveling theater troupe led by the good-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Crummles (L. Peter Callender and Lozano). Part One ends with a hilariously revised "Romeo and Juliet," followed by a rousing song sung by the entire cast (musical direction by Peter Maleitzke).
Part One runs more than three hours with one intermission, but it flies by thanks to the sharp direction and outstanding acting, with most of the actors playing multiple roles. Besides the actors already mentioned, other standouts in the cast include Dan Hiatt, Joan Mankin and Delia MacDougall. The period costumes are by Anna R. Oliver, the lighting by Alexander V. Nichols, sound by Jake Rodriguez and fight choreography by Andrew Hurteau, who also plays several characters.
It's an outstanding accomplishment, well worth the 20-year wait since the last Bay Area production.