BYU Theatre closes the curtains on 'Great Expectations'

Students and staff in the BYU Theatre program finished up their run of Neil Bartletts play Great Expectations," an adaptation of Charles Dickens novel by the same name, on Nov. 1.

Great Expectations follows the lead, Pip, as he reflects on the people he chased after and the people who stayed by his side, often pausing to write their names in chalk on the black floor of the stage. Directed by Alex Mackenzie Johns, the play runs for about three hours, with a 15-minute intermission at the halfway mark.

Jared Hendricks, a second year in the BFA acting program, plays Pip at various ages and stages of life: from an orphan living with a simple blacksmith, to a reckless young gentleman in London, to a world-weary adult looking back on his life.

(Pip) is just the prime example of someone who went off, made mistakes, and is doing his best to actively rectify them, Hendricks said. I see myself in him, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to portray him.

Hendricks is one of eight cast members, supported by the dozens of people in the crew who helped build the set, props, costumes and sound design. Among these supporting crew members is Aislin Dyer.

As the shows dramaturg, Dyers job is to know the story backwards and forwards and help the audience understand whats happening.

According to Dyer, the staging of the play is abstract by design.

Were actually not performing the events that happened in Pip's life; it's his memories of the events, Dyer said. We have these draperies that function as the layers of Pips memory that people are in and out of, and (the fabric also) becomes the water and the fire and all of these elemental forces.

The play also included handheld lanterns as a narrative device with the cast acting as their own spotlight operators to direct the audiences attention. Crew members remotely turned each lantern on and off and controlled the quality of light, which meant actors needed to keep track of which lanterns they needed for each scene.

Most of the time, Pip is shining a light on himself because these are his memories," Dyer said. "He's stuck there, focused on what his experience has been, but then there are times that he turns it to Estella or to certain people when he's focusing on them.

According to Nathan Holley, who played Jaggers, Mr. Joe and the occasional doorframe, cast members were on duty even off-stage, as several scenes included silhouettes that they projected onto the drapes from behind.

This is by far the most intense, mentally demanding show I've ever done, Holley said. Theres so much choreography backstage that nobody's seeing to make sure that all our changes are going fine, that we have the right lantern in hand it's frankly quite a miracle that it all came together.

The staging, transition scenes and line deliveries were often decided collaboratively by the actors.

Alex Johns, our director, came in and said that she didn't want to just be moving us like pieces on a chessboard for the whole process. She wanted us to all be co-collaborators with one another, Hendricks said. We all worked together to come up with so many of the lifts and the choreography, and every step of the way was just such an amazing team-building experience.

This creative freedom manifested memorably during the first transition from the countryside to London, when Hendricks (as Pip) does a running front somersault and is caught midair by two of his fellow cast members.

It reached the point that I don't know whose ideas were whose, because we were all just working, and whatever worked best floated to the top, Dyer said.

Under Johns' direction, actors worked on their dialects, posture and mannerisms many of which were exaggerated to the point of becoming caricatures.

These are some of my favorite roles I've played; they're juicy, Holley said. Dickens is just a master at writing these beautiful, intricate characters that are four-dimensional.

The larger-than-life characters struck a balance between comedy and tragedy.

We definitely took the time to make sure there were moments of levity and comedy, Holley said. Dickens is brilliant. You read the novel, and he's just got that base British humor where everything is both tragic and satirical.

During some scenes, actors had to pause to wait for the audience to stop laughing, but that didnt take away from the somber moments toward the end, where the whole room seemed to hold its breath as cast members quietly hummed the melody of Nearer, My God, to Thee.

(Great Expectations) is a story about redemption, gratitude and healing, and these are really powerful themes for us to share with our campus community," Dyer said.