PL AYBILL great expectations
GREAT EXPECTATIONS CHARLES DICKENS, ADAPTED BY MICHAEL SHAMATA }{
a pproxim at e ru n ni ng t im e: 2 hou rs a nd 35 m i nu t es t h er e w ill be one 20 m i nu t e i n t er m ission
TIDBITS
ARTIST NOTE: JEFF LILLICO Well. Wow. We’ve just completed our second week of rehearsal and it’s very clear to me that I’ve never played a role of such scope, as my character Pip ages from a boy of seven into his mid-thirties. I have very few concrete memories from the age of seven, and to think of the circumstances in my life that have shaped me since is enough to boggle the mind. What an astounding gift, to be so challenged, in the company of such incredible actors, with Michael Shamata’s beautiful adaptation and under his deft direction. As Pip makes good and bad choices along his journey, so too have I. As Pip is touched by the grace of souls too generous and true to comprehend, so too have I been, throughout every stage of my life. I’m so grateful for this opportunity to examine the enormous breadth of choices and chances that conspire to make a life and, as I believe is Pip’s greatest wish in sharing his story, to attempt to honour the miracle of the people with whom our lives are shared. I can’t wait to share this experience with this remarkable company and with all of you as our journeys now briefly converge, here amidst the bricks of the Distillery.•
JEFF LILLICO, Pip in Great Expectations
Some quotes from Great Expectations, the novel: • I
must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.
• S pring
is the time of year when it's summer in the sun and winter in the shade.
• T he
broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.
• S cattered
wits take a long time in picking up.
• T ake
the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.’
• A
most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places and not quite so loose in others.
A Canadian connection: Dickens’ son Frank spent many years with the North West Mounted Police in Canada – banished to the colonies because of his hopeless relationship with money.