By Liz Mitchell
This will be too cute! Don’t miss our music and drama with the British musical classic Oliver! presented by Brunswick Little Theatre. The cast of 40 promises a treat for the opening of the theater’s 29th season.
The show based on the novel Oliver! by Charles Dickens opened on Broadway in 1963 after a successful run in London. The movie adaptation was a 1968 Academy Award winner. The well-loved and familiar musical includes such favorites as “Food Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” “I'd Do Anything (For You)” and two immortalized by Shirley Bassey, “Where is Love” and “As Long as He Needs Me.”
Oliver! is the story of a young boy who is raised in a workhouse after his mother dies. Suffering the abuses of the workhouse, sold to an undertaker and made to sleep in a coffin, he finally escapes, only to become entangled with a group of ragamuffins, who, under the tutelage of Fagin, learn the art of pickpocketing on the streets of Victorian London. Other characters of note are Bill Sykes, the hard and sadistic graduate of Fagan's academy for crooks; Nancy, Bill's motherly and abused girlfriend; Mr. Bumble, the head of the workhouse; and the Artful Dodger, a good-natured boy who teaches Oliver his trade of pickpocketing.
Oliver! is an indictment of the social structure of nineteenth-century England where the very rich and the aristocrats commanded a sense of entitlement, and everyone else existed to make their lives easier and fuller. Although a dark story, some of the characters and songs lift the story above the maudlin diatribe against Victorian society and its injustices; some of the characters are optimistic of their possibilities, though they could only joke about moving far from their present conditions.
Brunswick Little Theatre will present Oliver! at Odell Williamson Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. July 29, 30 and August 5, 6 and at 3 p.m. July 31 and August 7. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students 12 and older and $6 for children under 12. For tickets call 1-800-754-1050, ext. 7416. For more information go to BrunswickLittleTheatre.com.
Photos by Jen Iapalucci, director of the show