Discover Dickens’ Women

TOVA G. KORNFELD

Any actor about to go on stage is nervous about her role and her lines. Now imagine playing 23 characters in the course of two hours. That is what Miriam Margolyes will be doing when she brings her one-woman show, Dickens’ Women, to the Cultch Nov. 15-Dec. 1.

Born and raised in England, the 71-year-old was first introduced to the thespian world at Cambridge, where she joined the Footlights club and rubbed shoulders with the likes of John Cleese and Trevor Nunn. Her career has spanned five decades and every genre: radio, film, television and stage. Margolyes’ resumé is a veritable who’s who of the entertainment world. She has worked with Maggie Smith and Judy Dench (Ladies in Lavender), Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Michelle Pfeiffer and Martin Scorcese (The Age of Innocence), Barbra Streisand (Yentl) and Rowan Atkinson (The Blackadder), to name a few. She won a BAFTA, a British film award, in 1993 as best supporting actress for her role in The Age of Innocence. She also played the original Madame Morrible in the West End production of Wicked and reprised that role on Broadway. However, she is probably best known for her role as Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter films. To top it all off, Margolyes was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 2002 for her contribution to the arts.

In a telephone interview with the Independent from New York, where she is currently performing, Margolyes was witty and charming. She described how she caught the acting bug as a child.

“I was an only child and a bit of a show off. I liked to get a lot of attention. Doing skits and plays gave me that opportunity,” she said. “When I went to Cambridge, it all sort of came together.”

Exploring the work of Charles Dickens grew out of Margolyes’ lifelong interest in the author. “Dickens is one of the greatest English writers the world has seen,” she said. “I was first introduced to him when I read Oliver Twist at the age of 11. I got pulled into his work and studied it in depth at university. He writes about the realities of life, things that are timeless and that we can all relate to. But the show is also about Dickens the man, not just Dickens the writer. He was a complex, strange man. His own daughter called him ‘wicked.’ If you go through his work, from the early lighthearted days of Pickwick Papers through to his darker stories like Bleak House and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, you can see the change in his style.”

Examining Dickens’ treatment of his female characters is an outgrowth of this curiosity with the well-known author. “I don’t believe that he was a happy man and I believe that he felt that women treated him badly, and he may not have liked them,” Margolyes explained. “But he was one of the great geniuses of the world, right up there with Shakespeare. I thought that exploring his female characters would make an interesting and different experience for an audience. The show actually started out with two performers in the 1990s as a Fringe Festival production but has evolved into the one-woman show that I am now touring around the world.”

Dickens has been labeled as antisemitic for his portrayal of Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist, a character he based on Ikey Solomon, a real-life criminal he interviewed while working as a journalist. Margolyes disagrees about this characterization of Dickens. “I don’t think he was an antisemite. He just portrayed Fagin as he saw Jews at the time in mid-1800s London, mainly inhabiting the East End and involved in the rag business and street crime,” she noted. “Sometimes we Jews are too sensitive about these things. If you look at the last part of the book, Fagin is portrayed quite sympathetically when he is on trial and faced with his death on the gallows.”

About two years ago, Margolyes dipped her own toes into the literary world. “My agent said that Dickens’ bicentenary was coming up and maybe I should write a book about the show. So, I collaborated with Shona Fraser, who wrote the original script for the play, and we produced a companion piece for the show. It was probably the hardest work I ever did. I am happy to say that it has been a huge success. I sell the books after each performance and we have already had three printings.”

Reviews have pointed out that Margolyes “makes the case that, while not necessarily the kindest or sexiest man of his age, [Charles Dickens] could certainly create memorable female characters.” The London Telegraph dubbed the show as, “a masterclass not only in acting, but in the power of literature.” Vancouverites who come to see Dickens’ Women will have a chance to consider their own conceptions of the author’s legacy and his characters.

“Firstly, they will see me performing at my absolute best,” Margolyes said of what local patrons should expect. “Secondly, they will get a chance to explore Dickens’ female characters, warts and all, and gain a better understanding of the man and his psychology.”

Margolyes makes her way through the 21 female and two male parts in the course of the play, a complicated feat. “I am the quintessential character actor. I like to take roles and make them fun,” she said. “I love being on stage.”

Margolyes’ favorite character from the Dickens’ canon is “definitely Miss Havisham from Great Expectations,” she shared. “On the one hand, she is this despicable old cow but, on the other hand, she is quite pathetic, and I have developed quite an affection for her.”

Through her success, Margolyes has also had regrettable moments on stage and she’s not shy to talk about them. “I rolled off the stage in a chair and landed on people in the front row,” she said of one such time. “The props department put casters on the chair between the dress rehearsal and the first performance and did not bother to tell me.” However, she managed to salvage her dignity and, in true, stiff-upper-lip British fashion, extricated herself from the audience and got right back up on stage.

In her off-stage life, Margolyes is very active in charitable work, recently completing a public service announcement for the British Colorectal Society. “People don’t usually like to talk about their bottoms, but I thought it was important and a worthy cause and so I did it,” she said. Margolyes has also worked with various organizations to improve the lives of women around the world.

She currently resides with her partner in Australia and has just completed the first season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (airing this fall on the Knowledge Network) as Aunt Prudence. She also has finished another film with Streisand, which comes out in December.

Information and tickets for Dickens’ Women are available by calling 604-251-1363 or visiting thecultch.com.

Tova G. Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

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