The Dictionary of Lost Words
This finely detailed staging of a late Victorian woman’s coming of age features big talent from Adelaide – it’s based on Pip Williams’ hit debut novel, adapted by Verity Laughton and created by the State Theatre of SA with most actors experienced there but new to the Sydney Theatre Company.
Centred on the back-garden scriptorium where the ebullient Sir James Murray and his team over decades slowly created the first Oxford English Dictionary. Here little four-year-old Esme lies at her father’s feet fascinated by those slips with rejected words falling to the floor.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey is masterful as Esme, growing from wistful girl to an ever-curious, sharply intelligent woman up to 1915, well-versed in grief, lost love and the suffragette movement. But her steadfast mission as self-appointed lexicographer is to collect the forgotten, sometimes obscene, words of women’s business, workers and street walkers.
These outside worlds happily for Esme (and us) intrude into her domestic routine, shared with her widowed father (Brett Archer), her lifetime bond with her maid (a compelling Rachel Burke) and her aunt in Bath (Ksenja Logos), the women leaping also into other roles. Logos is also notable as the streetwise Mabel ever offering Esme new words not fit for ordinary dictionaries.
Angela Mahlatjie excels as an outspoken actress who opens Esme’s eyes to new lives, while Anthony Yangoyan is the cockney charmer who brings her big challenges; and handsome Ray Labade later gives her secure love, briefly.
Laughton’s adaptation reportedly stays true to the much-loved novel; it’s a linear narrative of short conventional scenes, distinguished by director Jessica Arthur drawing out truthful consistent performances and creating segues artful and snappy. Max Lyandvert’s extensive sound and Trent Suidegeest’s beautiful lighting is vital here, as are the handsome period costumes from Ailsa Paterson.
The Dictionary of Lost Words is much like watching a nice quality BBC TV period drama with a top cast and an unchanging pace. Despite Arthur’s inventive storytelling, there’s no theatrical surprise or mighty theme hidden in Laughton’s far-too-wordy script – we are given every detail over three hours. And yet it holds and charms you.
The real star of this delicately rendered show is Jonathon Oxlade’s set with its huge wall of pigeon holes, a categorised backdrop stuffed with word slips, and above a balcony stage level backed with by a screen showing dates, old photographs and revealing mementoes. It’s a play likely to be loved as much as the novel.
Martin Portus
Photographer: Daniel Boud
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