Not even a solid Marriott Theatre cast can rescue ‘Oliver!’ from its dated trappings

The Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre’s staging of “Oliver!” is a fine production of a musical that has aged horrendously.

On the pro side of the show, which opened Wednesday night: Director Nick Bowling’s outstanding cast is more than capable of delivering Lionel Bart’s musicalization of Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel.

On the horrendous side: The leading lady’s belt-the-house-down showstopper is an anthem to staying true to a man who beats her viciously when he’s having a good day and does far worse when he really loses his temper. “As Long as He Needs Me” has a gorgeous melody. It’s also an ugly illustration of misogyny being sold to audiences as love.

But let’s back up a moment.

Dickens’ novel was (and is) an indictment of a world where the rich grind the poor beneath their boots, be that by exploiting children or condemning single pregnant women (like Oliver’s mother) to die penniless, young and alone. The tome’s relevance more than 180 years after publication is a bleak reminder of society’s brutally enduring shortcomings. In the Labour Organization’s widely reported 2017 study, roughly 10 million children are enslaved across the globe. It’s a safe assumption that most don’t have the happy ending Oliver gets after his varied adventures as a penniless orphan in London.

Still, packing Dickens’ doorstop picaresque tale into just over two hours makes for a lot of thinly drawn saints and sinners. As Oliver (Kai Edgar opening night, Kayden Koshelev at alternate performances) goes from Victorian-era England workhouse to servitude for an undertaker to a London gang of child thieves overseen by a veteran pickpocket named Fagin (William Brown), chase scenes start to overtake the character development.

Oliver is pursued by workhouse overseers Mr. Bumble (Matthew R. Jones) and Mrs. Corney (Bethany Thomas), funereal undertakers Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry (Jason Grimm and Caron Buinis), Fagin, big bad Bill Sikes (Dan Waller) and a few magistrates before Mr. Brownlow (Terry Hamilton) rescues (then loses, then re-rescues) the urchin from a life of penury. That’s a lot of running around and it all comes at the expense of Dickens’ singular characters. Sikes, for example, rarely utters more than a few snarling syllables. Not even Waller – who has been proving his mettle on Chicago stage for years – can do much with so little.

What makes “Oliver!” worth seeing is the performance Bowling gets from 8-year-old Edgar. He’s tiny — about a third of the size of Mr. Bumble, for example. When Oliver asks for “more” gruel, Bumble towers over him like a giant. The optics are straight out of a child’s nightmare. Edgar looks the part of a half-starved, cruelly vulnerable child. And with the wistful, angelic “Where is Love,” it’s clear that he’s a precociously gifted vocalist, too.

Patrick Scott McDermott’s Artful Dodger — the young pickpocket who brings Oliver into Fagin’s gang of child thieves — is also excellent. McDermott gives Dodger (Nolan Maddox plays the role in some performances) the bountiful exuberance of a kid who doesn’t yet understand how high the odds are stacked against him. McDermott’s Dodger is savvy, but that savviness is both humorous and heartbreaking because the audience knows what Dodger doesn’t: No child should be this sophisticated this young.

As for Brown’s Fagin, he’s an unexpected, unconventional heartbreaker. Fagin gets the last word, and his haunting reprise of “Reviewing the Situation” will be an arrow straight to the heart of anyone who has ever wondered what’s to become of them once they get old — whenever that may be.

Liz Lauren

And that brings us to Lucy Godinez as Bill Sikes’ much–abused girlfriend, Nancy. Godinez has a voice that could make stones weep. She sells “As Long as He Needs Me” with the fervor of an evangelist at a death-bed conversion. But her remarkable vocal prowess can’t change Bart’s reprehensible lyrics. Nancy will stay by the man who needs her, even as he brutalizes her, day after day after day. It’s enough to make any reasonable person want to summon Bart from the grave and demand a rewrite.

Bowling can’t do much about Bart’s shortcomings, but he does make the rest of the show top-notch. Brenda Didier’s choreography is a raucous delight, form the drunken revelry of “Oom-Pah-Pah” to the dirge-like march of the workhouse boys in the overture. Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s set frames the stage with elaborate (what looks like) wrought-iron, a cheekily decorative “B” (for Bumble? Bart? Bowling? I prefer to think it’s the last.) curlicuing above a segment of the stage. Music director Ryan T. Nelson, sound designer Robert E. Gilmartin and conductor Patti Garwood fill the space with a rich, full sound. Even when the lyrics deserve to be buried in the Sowerberrys’ coffins.

Catey Sullivan is a local freelance writer.

Liz Lauren