One reason Great Expectations adapts so readily to the stage is the fact that so many of its characters are consciously acting out roles. It’s not so much the baroque Dickensian caricatures, which are thankfully underplayed in Jemima Levick’s excellent production. There’s Estella in training to become an ice maiden; Pip taking on the clothes of a gentleman; Magwitch trying to suppress his inner convict; and Jaggers distinguishing between his personal beliefs and his professional role as a lawyer. Even Miss Havisham (a pale, fragile Anne Louise Ross) has deliberately reinvented herself from innocent bride to vengeful manipulator.
The image they show to the world is almost always in conflict with the people they truly are, an idea reinforced by Becky Minto’s haunting set in which corridors of empty picture frames stand ready to capture some fleeting – and inadequate – likeness. As Mike Robertson’s high-contrast lighting slices through the gloom, muting the colours, the production is like a black-and-white movie, especially being accompanied by the swirling arpeggios of David Paul Jones’s live piano score.
All this creates a gothic, dream-like world for Thomas Cotran’s Pip to journey through in Jo Clifford’s venerable adaptation. As a child, he is good hearted but strong willed; as a man, he never shakes off the boy within. Above all, in this moving production, he captures the emotional tumult of someone compelled to live up to an image imposed from outside.
Unusually, this has greatest impact in his relationships with the men. Rather than being frostily unattainable, Millie Turner’s Estella is as lost as he is, making his infatuation with her seem less self-destructive. This shifts the focus to the father figures – Joe, Jaggers and Magwitch – and the sad failure to communicate with those who loved him the most and could say so the least.
At Dundee Rep until 15 June. Box office: 01382 227684. At Perth Concert Hall, 23–27 June. Box office: 01738 621031.
