Gale Childs Daly. Photo: Great River Shakespeare Festival.
tions is, except there were 36 people onstage, not 6. I had that production in my head and it helped me very much. That production was wildly successful, I think for the same reasons that Great Expectations is successful. It’s really fun to come and see a group of artists, whether 36 or 6, come in and just give virtuosity performances in different roles. It’s fun to see one actor play 16 different parts. I think that’s one
of the reasons why people like Dickens, too. You just get to live in this world of fantastic characters. MF: Do you think that Charles Dickens is relevant to the world of 2016? GCD: Charles Dickens is a humanist. He really knew and loved people and how people act and how we think and what we do. I think that the people in Charles Dickens novels are just like
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IT’S FUN TO SEE ONE ACTOR PLAY 16 DIFFERENT PARTS. I THINK THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS WHY PEOPLE LIKE DICKENS, TOO. YOU JUST GET TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD OF FANTASTIC CHARACTERS. people today. It’s like Shakespeare. We love Shakespeare after 400 years for the same reason we love Charles Dickens and that is that he’s universal. His scenes are universal. His characters are delightful. We get to go into a world that is very strange, and at the same time, familiar to us. I think he’s very, very relevant. MF: Did writing this adaptation at all change