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Goodspeed revives the musical ‘Oliver!’
In the musical “Oliver!,” Oliver Twist is a different sort of central character. It’s not just that he’s a youngster, an orphan dealing with a hardscrabble life. It’s also that — as Rob Ruggiero, director of “Oliver!” at Goodspeed Opera House, notes — Oliver doesn’t change. Most protagonists struggle with and overcome obstacles or undergo dramatic events that change who they are.
What Oliver does, though, is remain who he is — and just by being himself, he changes other people and alters the world, Ruggiero says.
“That’s what I found really fascinating and inspiring,” Ruggiero says.
This tale, of course, is taken from Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” The title character is orphaned in Victorian London. He’s consigned to workhouses and into forced labor until he finds a semblance of family as a member of a group of child pickpockets led by the character Fagin. Ruggiero says he loves stories about family, and, in “Oliver!,” that’s what it all comes down to. Oliver was born into unfortunate circumstances, and he ends up on a quest of sorts, searching for love and belonging.
“He’s in this horrible life, and he finds this family of misfits and people of not high moral value,” Ruggiero says. “… He’s such a pure soul, a real innocent soul that he doesn’t weigh, ‘Oh, they’re thieves and they’re bad people.’ To him, they’ve accepted him. (The character of) Nancy is nice, they give him shelter and food, and they embrace him.”
Most people probably know “Oliver!” from the 1968 movie version, which won six Oscars, including one for best picture.
But “Oliver!” was onstage first. It premiered in 1960 in the West End in London. It was a long-running success there, as it was on Broadway starting in 1963.
Lionel Bart wrote the music, lyrics and book for “Oliver!” (Bart infamously signed the rights to that and some of his other works away for a small amount in order to finance another show of his in the 1960s; he ended up filing for bankruptcy in the 1970s.)
Ruggiero has directed a bevy of classics at Goodspeed before, from “Camelot” and “Fiddler on the Roof” to “Carousel” and “1776,” and he sees “Oliver!” as another great classic musical theater piece.
“‘Oliver!,’ as entertaining as it is, has a strong story and strong relationships, and that’s always what appeals to me,” he says.
“Oliver!” also offers some complexity. It has both dark and light elements, and if the former is driven by aspects of the story, the latter is powered in large part by the hit-packed score that features “Consider Yourself,” “I’ll Do Anything,” “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” and “Food, Glorious Food.”
Ruggiero says he uses the word “balance” a lot when talking to people about the show.
“You have to not be afraid of the darkness, but you can also celebrate, through Oliver, the joy, and there’s a huge entertainment value to the show …,” he says. “To push those boundaries of safety and yet my anchor is that lens of truth — you can have both. It’s a tricky balance, but I love that. You can have heightened and truthful.”
Finding Oliver
Ruggiero cast someone on the young side as Oliver, 9-year-old Elijah Rayman. The Brooklyn, N.Y., resident has acted since he was 5 (his credits include playing Mamillius in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” at New York’s Theatre for a New Audience). Ruggiero was struck by Elijah, not just as a performer but also as a person.
“I say this to everybody: ‘Don’t talk to him too much!’ Because he’s an unpolluted soul. He doesn’t have show-business-y instincts. He’s not slick. He can listen, and he can speak a line truthfully,” Ruggiero says. “To me, it creates some obstacles in having to sustain some moments, but he’s so appealing, which I think Oliver is.”
“Oliver!” isn’t revived a lot (this is Goodspeed’s first production of it), in part because the cast needs to have a fair number of children in it.
“Kids are great, but it just takes a little time. It’s a little nail-biting sometimes,” Ruggiero says. “I’m blessed that James (Gray, the choreographer) … and Katie (Huff, assistant choreographer), they’re amazing with the kids. So I really deal mostly with Artful Dodger (played by Gavin Swartz, age 13) and Oliver. … They’re sponges and they’re smart.”
Gray and Ruggiero agree to, as much as possible, interact with the youths as part of a professional company rather than talk down to them because they’re kids.
There are other issues that arise when a show’s cast boasts a lot of youngsters. The unexpected proliferation of school snow days from this winter has meant the kids hadn’t been able to start rehearsing full-time as soon as expected.
“We tried different things. We found ultimately it’s easier to piece the scene together without all of (the kids) here and then plug them in,” Ruggiero says.
Wanting more
In “Oliver Twist,” Ruggiero notes, Dickens was commenting on the British parish system, which maintained workhouses and orphanages. He was trying to shine a light on those damaging practices and to encourage people to pay attention to what was going on.
In the musical “Oliver!,” Ruggiero says, “The happy moments, the comedy, the entertainment stuff allows some of this information to come in a side door.”
He says that if there’s a character spine that’s shared by many of the figures in “Oliver!,” it comes down to wanting more — reflected in Oliver’s famous line, “Please, sir. I want some more.”
To some extent, that’s a reflection of the human condition.
“I can’t think of a person who wouldn’t want more of something — more money, more time, more food if you’re hungry. That want for more and how we express it and handle it is a great connection to the show, and how we handle that ‘want’ defines our fate in some ways,” Ruggiero says.