When the 2024 State Theatre South Australia season was announced, plenty of punters retreated to the bookshelves to get out well-thumbed copies of Dickens’ Great Expectations or, for the cognoscenti, Peter Carey’s intriguing reimagining in his 1997 novel Jack Maggs.
Both tales are torrid and twisted, with dense plots aplenty. Stage adaptations of the Dickens have tended to simplify things and, to be sure, a sentimental take on the life and love of the convict Magwitch makes for evocative theatre. Carey’s Jack Maggs, on the other hand, is an altogether more complex character.
Jack Maggs is set in Victorian England, where paupers and princes lived cheek-by-jowl in the East End, but has the man himself transported to Australia. Maggs is forbidden to return to his home, even when pardoned, but love has bade him welcome, and so he risks the hangman’s noose to steal back into London to right some wrongs and exact more than a little vengeance.
Geordie Brookman directs a crack cast with a deft hand. His Maggs starts out like Sweeney Todd, complete with a ship’s whistle, lurching angrily out of the smog, seemingly bent on violence. But we quickly realise that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.
Mark Saturno’s performance is simply epic. He makes Maggs a man of wisdom and insight, yet with a great weakness. His thorn in the flesh is cruelly exploited by the ruthless and self-serving author Tobias Oates (James Smith), himself more than a little restless and hungry for love.
The relationships between Maggs and Oates and their friends and foes are many and varied. Nathan O’Keefe is delicious as the grocer-cum-gentleman Percy Buckle, his household ruled by the imperious Mrs Halfstairs (Jacqy Phillips) with the beautiful serving girl Mercy (Ahunim Abebe) and the secret-keeping Partridge (Dale March).
Over at the Oates residence, Rachel Burke is in fine form as Tobias’ despairing wife Mary, while Jelena Nicdao, in an impressive professional debut, gives nuance to Mary’s sister Lizzie, the object of more than a little affection, not all of it wanted.
Adapter Samuel Adamson – Adelaide-born and London-based – has done an excellent job distilling the key themes of Carey’s story – and we need to remember that Carey is first and foremost a storyteller. Carey himself admits that he chose to complicate the character of Maggs, so deciding which of the proliferation of story lines to include (or, more agonisingly, to omit) will have been a considerable challenge. The audience reaction suggests he’s succeeded in abundance.
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The production – yet another winning design from Ailsa Paterson – takes us from smog-filled streets and back-alley abortions to elegant salons on tree-lined streets. This is achieved almost entirely by suggestion, with mismatched, patched curtains loosely framing the scenes, and the cast dressed almost in rags, a parody of Victorian elegance and a reminder of the pervasive impact of grinding poverty.
Jack Maggs is a satisfying and important new piece.
Jack Maggs by Samuel Adamson
Based on the novel by Peter Carey
State Theatre Company South Australia
Adelaide Festival Centre
Director: Geordie Brookman
Assistant Director: Annabel Matheson
Set and Costume Designer: Ailsa Paterson
Lighting Designer: Nigel Levings
Composer: Hilary Kleinig
Sound Designer: Andrew Howard
Accent Coach: Jennifer Innes
Cast: Ahunim Abebe, Jacqy Phillips, Mark Saturno, James Smith, Jelena Nicdao, Rachel Burke, Nathan O’Keefe, Dale March
Tickets: $39-$95
Jack Maggs will be performed until 30 November 2024.
