Verity Laughton’s sumptuous stage adaptation of the award-winning debut novel by Australian writer, Pip Williams, is enjoying a sold-out season in Canberra.
The epic play follows the life of Esme Nicoll, portrayed by Shannen Alyce Quan, who is first met as a precocious four-year old who spends her days playing under the desk of her father, in a Scriptorium, where he and a team of lexicographers are busy gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.
Esme becomes fascinated with words, particularly those discarded on slips of paper by the male lexicographers as irrelevant. The realisation, when questioning the meaning of one of those discarded words, bondmaid, along with many other of the words in her collection, had female connotations, prompts Esme to set about compiling her own Dictionary of Lost Words.
Those attracted by the opportunity of seeing favourite characters from the novel brought to life by talented actors, are unlikely to be disappointed. The myriad of characters required to tell the story, are created by just 8 actors, who, with the exception of Shannen Alyce Quan, who plays the central character, Esme Nicoll, from a four-year-old through to adulthood, manage, with the assistance of excellent costumes and wigs designed by Ailsa Paterson, to populate the stage with creative and charming characterisations.
But despite their excellent efforts, for those who haven’t read the novel, deprived of a printed program to help identify the various characters, the experience of keeping up with the numerous plot twists of the epic story, may prove exhausting.
Reported as having worked closely with Pip Williams to create her adaptation, Laughton has fallen into the trap of not distinguishing the wood from the trees by including too many superfluous sub-plots from the novel and creating too many characters who are not given sufficient stage time to make an impact on or connect with the audience.
Although these details might have been fascinating in the novel, but despite clever directorial flourishes by director, Jessica Arthur, in creating many lovely moments , potentially interesting details are not explored sufficiently in the play, and therefore detract from the main focus, which is the creation of Esme’s personal dictionary.
Even Jonathan Oxlade’s remarkable multi-layered setting, enhanced by projected timelines, dot-points and artful video decorations by Trent Suidgeest, felt overpowering and intrusive in those scenes not located within the Scriptorium.
Therefore, despite the obvious talent, imagination and creativity lavished on this production, the meandering nature of Williams’ novel has not responded well as a stage production.
However, as the rights to Williams’s novel have been purchased for presentation as a television series, perhaps the illusive nature of The Dictionary of Lost Words will be more comfortably realised in that medium.
The Dictionary of Lost Words
Playhouse – Canberra Theatre Centre, Civic Square, Canberra
Performance: Wednesday 21 May 2025
Season continues to 24 May 2025
Information and Bookings: www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
Following the Canberra season, The Dictionary of Lost Words will be presented at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Wollongong (29 May – 7 June).
Image: Johnny Nasser and Shannen Alyce Quan in The Dictionary of Lost Words – photo by Prudence Upton
Review: Bill Stephens OAM