Act One

At rise, Narrator A and B stand stage left behind music stands on a stage with one or two gravestones large enough to hide a man.

Narrator A

Welcome to a night of Dickens, including scenes from Great Expectations, David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities.

Narrator B

Not many things surpass the pleasure of reading the novels of Dickens.

Narrator A

From his own time on, his works, with their unforgettable characters, have held special appeal to the reading public and have often been transformed into plays and films.

Narrator B

But who is the man who became one of the most beloved writers in the English language?

Narrator A

He was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England. His father, John Dickens, was a naval pay officer who spent too much money entertaining and maintaining his social position.

Narrator B

The childhood of Dickens was darkened by his father’s desperate economic status.

Narrator A

After years of eluding creditors, his father was sent to debtor’s prison.

Narrator B

The young Charles Dickens was forced to work long hours pasting labels at a tumbledown, rat-infested shoe polish factory on the Thames.

Narrator A

Pay was six shillings a week, hours 8 am to 8 pm.

Narrator B

Each evening, young Charles returned alone to his lodgings in Camden Town, a three-mile walk from Warren’s Blacking factory, since the rest of his family joined his father at Marshalsea debtor’s prison.

Narrator A

These cruel turns of fate – his humiliating enslavement to menial labour and his father’s imprisonment and disgrace – would haunt Dickens for the remainder of his life.

Narrator B

Abandoned children and orphans like Pip – the hero of Great Expectations, are everywhere in his work.

Narrator A

When he finally became a writer, he used these early experiences to paint a sweeping satiric portrait of Victorian England, displaying both a passion for social reform and a unique ability to combine humour with horror.

Narrator B

Since he was paid by the word, he wrote novels with vast numbers of characters and elaborate plots.

Narrator A

The intricate plot and fascinating characters in Great Expectations are typical of his work.

Narrator B

In the following scene, Pip is surprised by the prisoner, Magwitch, in a graveyard.

Pip is kneeling before a gravestone when a prisoner leaps from behind the gravestone and grabs him.

Magwitch

Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!

Pip

Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir. Pray don’t do it, sir.

Magwitch

Tell us your name! Quick!

Pip

Pip, sir.

Magwitch

Once more! Give it mouth!

Pip

Pip. Pip, sir.

Magwitch

Show us where you live! Point out the place!

Pip points stage left. The prisoner goes through Pips pocket, finding a piece of bread which he eats ravenously.

Magwitch

You young dog! What fat cheeks you ha’ got. Darn me if I couldn’t eat em, and if I han’t half a mind to’t.

Pip

Please sir, don’t eat my cheeks!

Magwitch

Now lookee here! Where’s your mother?

Pip

(pointing to a gravestone) There, sir!

Magwitch

(starting to run in fear) Where?

Pip

There, sir! Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.

Magwitch

Oh. And that is your father alonger your mother?

Pip

Yes, sir. Him too, late of this parish.

Magwitch

Ha! Who d’ye live with, supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?

Pip

My sister, sir. Mrs. Joe Gargery, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.

Magwitch

Blacksmith, eh? (he looks down at his leg iron, grabbing Pip roughly bending him over the bench and staring at him) Now lookee here, the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?

Pip

Yes, sir.

Magwitch

And you know what wittles is?

Pip

Yes, sir. Wittles is food.

Magwitch

You get me a file and you get me wittles. You bring ‘em both to me or I’ll have your heart and liver out!

Pip

If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.

Magwitch

You bring me, tomorrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me at that old Battery over yonder. You do it and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning you having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am an Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep an creep his way to him and tear him open. I am keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?

Pip

I will get you the file and I will get you what bits of food I can.

Magwitch

And when and where will you come back to me?

Pip

At the Battery, sir. Early in the morning.

Magwitch

Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!

Pip

Lord strike me dead if I don’t!

Magwitch

Now you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young an, and you get home!

Pip

Goo-good night, sir!

Magwitch

(staring about him) Much of that with this cold wet flat! I wish I was a frog! Or an eel! (he staggers away, hugging himself from the cold)

Narrator A

In this performance, the part of Magwitch was played by _________.

Narrator B

The part of young Pip was played by _________.

Narrator A

Later Pip meets a beautiful and cold aristocratic girl named Estella, who makes Pip miserable because of his common background and manners.

Narrator B

He falls in love with Estella, who will never return his love. He tells his problems to his good friend Biddy, who loves Pip and would have made him a much better match. Ironically, he treats the faithful and loving Biddy almost as poorly as he is treated by Estella.

At rise, Pip and Biddy, both in their late teens, are sitting together on the bank of a river.

Pip

Biddy, how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you are very clever.

Biddy

What is it that I manage? I don't know.

Pip

How do you manage, Biddy, to learn everything that I learn, and always to keep up with me?

Biddy

I might as well ask you, how you manage?

Pip

No, because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see me turning to study. But you never study at night, Biddy.

Biddy

I suppose I must catch it like a cough.

Pip

You are one of those, Biddy, who make the most of every chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how improved you are!

Biddy

I was your first teacher though, wasn't I?

Pip

Biddy! Why, you are crying!

Biddy

No I am not. What put that in your head?

Pip

(pause) Yes, Biddy, you were my first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being together like this. Can you keep a secret?

Biddy

Yes.

Pip

I want to be a gentleman.

Biddy

Oh, I wouldn't, if I was you! I don't think it would answer.

Pip

Biddy, I have particular reasons for wanting to be a gentleman.

Biddy

You know best, Pip, but don't you think you are happier as you are?

Pip

Biddy, I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to either, since I was bound. Don't be absurd.

Biddy

Was I absurd? I am sorry for that. I didn't mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be comfortable.

Pip

Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be comfortable--or anything but miserable--there, Biddy!--unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now

Biddy

That's a pity!

Pip

If I could have settled down, if I could have settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you, shouldn't I, Biddy?

Biddy

Yes. I am not over-particular.

Pip

That doesn’t sound very flattering.

Biddy

You know I meant if well.

Pip

But instead of living like that, see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!

Biddy

It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say. Who said it?

Pip

The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.

Biddy

Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?

Pip

I don't know.

Biddy

Because, if it is to spite her, I should think-- but you know best--that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think--but you know best--she was not worth gaining over.

Pip

It may be all quite true, but I admire her dreadfully.

Biddy

I am glad of one thing, and that is, that you have felt you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher at the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's of no use now. (Biddy sighs sadly and rises) Shall we walk a little farther, or go home?

Pip

(rising and kissing Biddy on the cheek) Biddy, I shall always tell you everything!

Biddy

Till you're a gentleman.

Pip

You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not that I have any occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know!

Biddy

(looking away from Pip and sadly sighing) Ah! (Then pleasantly.) Shall we walk a little farther, or go home?

Pip

Biddy, I wish you could put me right.

Biddy

I wish I could!

Pip

If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,--you don't mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?

Biddy

Oh dear, not at all! Don't mind me.

Pip

If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me.

Biddy

But you never will, you see.

Narrator A

The part of Biddy was played by __________.

Narrator B

The part of Pip was played by __________.

Narrator A

In 1849, Dickens began to write David Copperfield, a novel which was also based on his early life experiences.

Narrator B

Like Dickens, David works as a child, pasting labels onto bottles. David also becomes first a law clerk, then a reporter, and finally a successful novelist.

Narrator A

Mr. Micawber is a satirical version of Dickens’s father, a likable man who can never scrape together the money he needs. Another famous character from this novel is Uriah Heep. He is a clerk of Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer whose daughter Agnes eventually marries Copperfield. Heep aggressively presents himself as "umble," but in fact he is malicious and designing.

Narrator B

In the next scene, David Copperfield comes across Uriah Heep for the first time, little knowing what a hypocrite he was meeting.

At rise, Uriah Heep reads a large book at his desk as David enters stage right.

David

You are working late tonight, Uriah.

Uriah

Yes, Master Copperfield.

David grabs a stool opposite to talk to him more conveniently.

Uriah

I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield

David

What work, then?

Uriah

I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield. I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!

David

I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?

Uriah

Me, Master Copperfield? Oh, no! I'm a very umble person.

David observes Uriah grinding his palms against each other, as if to squeeze them dry and warm and then wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket handkerchief.

Uriah

I am well aware that I am the umblest person going, let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former calling was umble. He was a sexton.

David

What is he now?

Uriah

He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield, but we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!

David

Have you been with Mr. Wickfield long?

Uriah

I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield. (he shuts up his book, carefully marking the place where he had left off) Since a year after my father's death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!

David

Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, I suppose?

Uriah

With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield.

David

Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, one of these days, and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.

Uriah

Oh no, Master Copperfield. I am much too umble for that! Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield. If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you.

David

I am certain he is, but I have not known him that long myself, though he is a friend of my aunt’s.

Uriah

(writhing with snaky twistings) Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield. Your aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield! A sweet lady, Master Copperfield! She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?

David

Yes!

Uriah

I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield, but I am sure you must have

David

Everybody must have.

Uriah

Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield, for that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield! (he writhes with excitement, then prepares to exit) Mother will be expecting me, and getting uneasy, for though we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be.

David

I should be glad to come.

Uriah

Thank you, Master Copperfield. (putting his book away upon the shelf) I suppose you will be stopping here often, Master Copperfield?

David

I will be coming here as long as I remain at school.

Uriah

Oh, indeed! I should think YOU would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield!

David

No, Uriah. I have no view of that sort!

Uriah

Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!

David

Not at all. And no such scheme is being entertained on my behalf by anyone else, either!

Uriah

Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly! Yes, indeed, I should think you would certainly!

David

You are mistaken! I am not about to take over this business!

Uriah

Would it suit your convenience, Master Copperfield, if I put out the light?

David

Please do so.