Review: David Copperfield Has Moments of Magic at 59E59 Theatres

“The real secret of magic lies in the performance.” So said David Copperfield—the magician that is, not the Dickens character. Still, it serves as a good epigram for Guildford Shakespeare Company’s two-and-a-half-hour compression of Dickens’s long, character-crammed novel David Copperfield.

There’s magic to be found in this play version, remarkably performed by only three actors, but what makes the novel a delight—its development of characters over hundreds of pages—is not what gives this staged version its sparkle.

Abigail Pickard Price, Sarah Gobran, and Matt Pinches have taken to adapting this classic after giving us Pride and Prejudice, which was also performed by three actors. The terrific Luke Barton returns with his ability to make us do a double take every time he comes out as someone new. Same with Louise Beresford, whose vocal impressions are astounding. Eddy Payne, in the title role, is the show’s engine, zipping around the stage nonstop as he narrates the twists and turns of David Copperfield’s life with the energy of a schoolboy on summer holiday.

Price, who also directs, and her colleagues had to make significant cuts, naturally enough. Peggotty’s suitor, Barkis, might have been willing, but he never gets a chance to woo her here. That’s fine when we’re given other favorites who play oversize roles on David’s road to becoming a writer.

In a nutshell, the story is about the life journey of David Copperfield, “a posthumous child,” born fatherless to a naïve mother who marries an ogre named Mr. Murdstone. Sent to a boarding school, David befriends the cheeky Steerforth before being forced into child labor in London, where he meets the kindly but insolvent Mr. Micawber. His aunt, Betsey Trotwood takes him in, and he gets a job with the deceitful Uriah Heep. Along the way David makes a bad marriage to Dora but eventually finds peace with Agnes and enjoys a successful writing career.

Barton and Beresford play about 18 characters between them, regularly dashing offstage for a costume change or swapping one hat for another (Neil Irish’s distinctive dresses make it easy to keep track of who’s who). Beresford is especially adept at switching from Miss Betsey to Uriah in a flash. Barton, often in drag, is also a master shapeshifter, morphing from Peggotty to the simple-minded Mr. Dick so completely that you might swear they were played by different actors.

Price and the cast have infused delightful stagecraft into this production. Mr. Murdstone is cleverly depicted by a tall hat and long coat on a coatrack while Barton growls behind. Li’l Emily’s dress unfurls to become the sea. The abusive headmaster Mr. Creakle towers above David in a long gown like a menacing specter. And Mr. Spenlow is represented by a Punch puppet. These creative grace notes add a spontaneous whimsy that feels Dickensian in its way.

Irish’s no-frills set, a somewhat rickety-looking series of windowed panels, does the job well enough, easily shifting from the nautical-themed home where Mr. Peggotty and Emily live, to the law office of Mr. Wickfield where David and Uriah work. Mark Dymock’s colorful lighting design assists with making the scene changes clear, and Matt Eaton’s sound design pipes subtle background music into it all to good effect.

The thing about Dickens’s novel is that it gets most of its magic from its larger-than-life characters and their emotional growth rather than its meandering plot. That time-intensive development is something that you simply cannot re-create onstage. Price knows this and hasn’t tried to do that here. But she and the cast have given a satisfying romp through the novel with the kind of creative flourishes that can only be found onstage.