The worldwide tour of Dickens’ Women celebrates the bi centenary of Dickens’ birth
By Monica Miller
Photos by Prudence-Upton
Although she is best known to youth as Professor Sprout from the Harry Potter movies, Miriam Margolyes is much more than that. She is a British stage, screen, and voice actor with numerous awards, nominations, and even an Order of the British Empire for her work in drama.
In the Olivier Award-nominated production of Dickens’ Women, Margolyes explores the man through his work — with character sketches, short readings, monologues, comedy, and commentary on his life. Originally premiering the show at the 1989 Edinburgh Festival, Margolyes has been on tour with Dickens’ Women since January to celebrate Charles Dickens’s bicentenary.
The one-woman performance, which boasts depictions of more than 23 characters, traces Dickens’s life, from childhood to marriage and ultimately to death. That life is much different than the jovial artist persona he maintained for the public.
Write What You Know
“[Dickens] could write about the underbelly of society because he came from it,” Margolyes narrates, addressing the audience plainly. She explains that he was born into the lower middle-class, but was a social climber. In Dickens’s world, class and social standing were not necessarily the indicator of a good or bad character. Margolyes uses her incredible talents as a voice actor to convey region, class, attitudes, and the judgment of the characters portrayed. Most of his novels came out in serialized releases, but Dickens made more money from dramatic readings than publishing work; this is one of the reasons performing Dickens’s work, like Shakespeare before him, is so captivating.
“One of my particular pleasures is to isolate voice,” Margolyes explains on the phone from her hotel in downtown Vancouver. Working with Sonia Fraser to create the script, Margolyes uses a simple set, lighting, and pianist accompaniment to bring Dickens’ Women alive.
“One of the powerful things about Charles Dickens is his strong moral conviction. If he thinks someone is bad, you can tell immediately.” Margolyes selected a variety of characters both famous and obscure from the novelist’s large body of work, combining comedy, pathos, disgust, satire, and social commentary.
Dickens’ Women draws parallels between his real life and the lives crafted on the page, driving home the well-worn cliche “write what you know.” Aspects of his mother, sisters, wife, lovers, and the other women in his life can been glimpsed within the females on the page: Mrs. Pipchin from Dombey and Son, motivated by the woman he boarded with as a child; Flora Finching from Little Dorrit, based on the lady who spurned his love as a young man; Mrs. Mcawbir from David Copperfield, inspired by his mother and the keeping up of appearances; and a whole host of “young, beautiful, and good” 17-year-olds in tribute to his deceased sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth.
True to her style, Margolyes speaks plainly to the audience with comedy and wit. She even addressed our hesitation to interrupt the performance with applause: “You can clap now” — and we did.
Relevence for Canadian students
Charles Dickens, like many great artists, has a worldwide allure and a sense of timelessness apparent in his work. He wrote about the realities and torments of life and relationships, and the constant struggle of good versus evil.
“Humanity is the same in different countries,” remarks Margolyes. “The same concerns of life, love, fear, and betrayal attack people wherever they are.
“Like any great artist, he had universal appeal,” says Margolyes, citing Leonard Cohen as a contemporary Canadian example. “The problem with students [today] is they flit around — everything they receive is from the screen, and very little is from the printed page or direct eye contact,” Margolyes laments. “Young people today are terribly deprived because they don’t even know they are.”
On The Town
Dickens’ Women finishes in Chicago, after which Margolyes will fly back to London in time for Christmas Eve. In early January, she will be returning to Australia, where she will have two months rest and finally become an Australian citizen. Then she will begin filming the second season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, a television drama series based on detective novels by Australian author Kerry Greenwood.
You can clap now.
