'Great Expectations,' but Mediocre Renditions

Two recent adaptations of "Great Expectations," Charles Dickens's classic novel about Pip, the country orphan who learns some hard lessons about life in the jungle of London, show the opposing conclusions and similar problems that can arise in different interpretations of a single source.


Using a stiff, narrative-heavy dramatization by Wilma Hollingberry, the National Youth Theater created one of those shows that primarily gives a speed-read of a big book.


At the Novy Drama Theater, director/adaptor Vladimir Sedov did radical surgery, excising the sentimental scenes of Pip's childhood and discarding Dickens' hint at a happy ending. The result was an atmospheric, if not always convincing, production that has more in common with the alienated world of surrealism than with Dickens' traditional portrait of the lower classes in 19th-century Britain.


At the Youth Theater, director Alexei Borodin and designer Stanislav Benediktov recreated all the unchanging drabness of Pip's world.


The spacious stage simultaneously depicts both the interiors of Joe Gargery's home, where Pip grows up, and Miss Havisham's neighboring residence, where Pip falls hopelessly in love with the cold-hearted Estella. Right there in the center is the grave of Pip's mother. Simple prop changes turn the same set into the office of the lawyer Jaggers; the London apartment that Pip shares with Herbert Pockets; a street before the city prison; or the river bank where the police finally capture Pip's mysterious benefactor, the ex-con Magwitch.


Damir Ismagilov's dim lighting barely keeps a spot on the action, leaving the impression that a cavernous, murky darkness is ever ready to swallow everyone and everything.


The monotony of the visuals is duplicated in the acting, which is as lifeless internally as it is static externally.


Alexei Kuznetsov's Joe is undeniably a nice guy, and Margarita Kupriyanova's Miss Havisham is unquestionably obsessed with taking vengeance on all men for once having been abandoned at the altar, but none among the cast of more than 30 ever acquires an independent life that exists outside of reference to Dickens' book. Rather than the novel's human drama, its sentimentality and its conventional social message is what is referenced most often.


Sedov's version is more interesting, although it ultimately lacks the flesh and blood needed to bring it to life. Its simplified title, "Pip," signals a refocused story, and, indeed, it has none of Dickens's social commentary.


This is a concentrated, revisionist exploration that quietly but insistently raises questions about Pip's real nature: Is the source of his inability to find his way among people the fact that he is gay but does not recognize his inclination?


Hints abound that it is so. Pip repeatedly misses the subtle signs of homoerotic attraction tendered by his roommate Herbert. The same aura also colors his dealings with the gently affectionate Magwitch -- who here is less a renegade criminal than an enigmatic man of refinement.


In that light, Pip's attraction to the unresponsive Estella looks increasingly like a consequence of his own inner confusion In Dickens, Estella's frostiness is the product of Miss Havisham's severe tutelage; Sedov's revision seems to suggest that she is what a gay man sees when forced to look upon a woman as a sexual subject.


But that all works on such a deeply subliminal level that it never musters an impact. The actors' stylized movements and speech, intended to mesmerize, are more effective in theory than in execution. Most often they just plunge things into dense tedium. Only Irina Manuilova, as the majestically dignified Estella, and Vladimir Levashyov, as the soft-spoken, avuncular Magwitch, capture the ambience that Sedov appeared to be after.


Sedov's bracingly effective minimalist set consists of little more than a high, angled, steel wall at center stage.


Svetlana Arsenyeva's severe, usually monotone costumes, and Dmitry Smirnov's sparse, evocative music round out the production's strong suit: its idea and its trappings.





"Great Expectations" (Bolshiye nadezhdy) is playing Feb. 3 and 10 at 7 P.M at the National Youth Theater, 2/7 Teatralnaya Ploshchad. Tel. 292-0069. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes. "Pip," a production of the Novy Drama Theater, will be presented Feb. 13 and 14 at 7 P.M. on the New Stage of the Chekhov Art Theater, 3 Kamergersky Pereulok. Tel. 229-8760. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.