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chapter two Nicholas Nickleby it is often said that the early novels of Charles Dickens are fairy tales: childish fantasies where good and evil are instantly recognizable and unambiguous ; bland, unmemorable cutout ‹gures embodying pure innocence endure heartrending trials devised by only slightly more realistic villains ; and happy endings are brought about by improbable good luck and magical coincidence. This is a partial truth, long purveyed as a complete truth by partisans of the harsh and ironic proclivities of modernism. Tactical childishness, however, is undoubtedly central to the perennial popularity of those books (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and The Old Curiosity Shop), as well as to the seemingly inexhaustible appetite for stage and ‹lm adaptations of them. The dramatic apotheosis of the fairy tale is melodrama , and Dickens was a master melodramatist who happened to write novels rather than plays. In 1979, the Royal Shakespeare Company, England’s preeminent repertory ensemble, was in grave ‹nancial distress, facing a reduced government subsidy and able to mount only one new production rather than its usual ‹ve or six. Under these circumstances, the artistic director, Trevor Nunn, decided to adapt Nicholas Nickleby (1839), Dickens’s third novel—a picaresque, thoroughly melodramatic tale about a nineteen-year-old country gentleman thrown upon the mercy of the world after the death of his bankrupt father— as an all-or-nothing means of lifting company spirits and box-of‹ce receipts. This adaptation, conceived as a potboiler, eventually grew to eight-and-ahalf hours during eight months of development and became one of the most ambitious Dickens adaptations of all time, as well as one of the most popular .Written by David Edgar and codirected by Nunn and John Caird, it is the 23 only adaptation of the dozen or so I have seen that convincingly conveyed the sweep and teeming life of a Dickens world, or that fully appreciated the complexity beneath his exuberant innocence. I saw the RSC’s Nickleby at the Aldwych Theatre in London in December 1980 during Christmas break from college, when I was about the same age as the novel’s not-yet-worldly hero. It was part of a feverish month in which I devoured London theater like Oliver Twist soaking up life beyond the workhouse —my ‹rst panto, my ‹rst West End and fringe shows, my ‹rst trip to Stratford. Nickleby was my ‹rst exposure to British accents wielded by native Britons who knew instinctively how to sting, wither, and ennoble with a slight in›ection or an elongated vowel, and the class frictions in the work were certainly more intense for me for that reason. I still remember particular snubs and humiliations in detail. It was also my ‹rst time seeing more than a dozen actors performing in a production that wasn’t a musical—a distinctly American provincialism, no doubt, that added to the thrill and romance of actually seeing a serious repertory ensemble company. But my most vivid memory of Nickleby is its un›agging energy and its air of irresistible joy. It was narrated not by any single ‹gure but rather by the entire forty-eight-member cast, all of whom seemed to “own” the story equally, chatting with spectators about it before the show and during breaks, stepping out of their roles willy-nilly to deliver narrative passages of a word, a phrase or a paragraph and then handing off the job to a partner. They sang along with a fourteen-piece band (songs composed by Stephen Oliver). Almost every actor played multiple roles, of varying age, social class, and sex, and the company seemed to be in constant motion, speaking above, behind, and in front of the audience, tramping about on a marvelous warren of irregular ramps, platforms, rope ladders, and scaffolds that were twisted and distressed to look like antique ironwork and extended through the orchestra and in front of the mezzanine. The actors remained visible on this contraption (designed by John Napier and Dermot Hayes) the entire time, sprinkling arti‹cial snow, operating thunder and wind machines, making sounds with their mouths such as dog barks, bird caws, baby cries, and owl hoots, at times just gawping and lounging meaningfully. They piled onto a simple rolling platform with baskets and trunks, magically transforming it into a departing stagecoach. They linked arms and stood in rows while encroaching on the play’s villain, impersonating looming houses and con‹ning...

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