Lookingglass' 'Curiosity' a wonder to behold

Watching Lookingglass Theatre Company's utterly beguiling new stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop" –a show that arrives with the aptly formulated subtitle, "A Victorian Fairy Tale of Joy and Woe" –it is impossible not to recall that Dickens himself adored the theater and was, by all accounts, a terrific actor. In fact, the story is told that once, after performing in a play by Ben Jonson, an old extra caught the novelist at the stage door and said: "Ah, what an actor you would have made, Mr. Dickens, if it just hadn't been for them books."

Of course, "them books" have been the source of countless theatrical renderings, from "A Christmas Carol" and "The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," to "Great Expectations," "David Copperfield" and Lookingglass' own unforgettable version of "Hard Times," first produced in 2001.

Filled to bursting with larger-than-life characters bearing the most inspired, personality-defining names –all of whom are intricately fitted into the machinations of plots as dark and twisting as the streets of Victorian London –Dickens' novels seem made for the stage. And the author's uncompromising look at the human toll that comes to those caught up in a society in which money is the great dictator of destinies, and love and kindness are sustained only through the greatest, odds-defying efforts, adds passion and gravitas to all the quirkiness.

"The Old Curiosity Shop" was conceived by Raymond Fox (who also plays The Single Gentleman, an Englishman who has returned to London after years in America and who serves as both narrator and participant in the tale). He adapted it seamlessly in collaboration with Laura Eason and Heidi Stillman. Director Tracy Walsh has devised the fluid, ingenious, almost balletic staging that makes every aspect of the storytelling come into focus with an instantly memorable clarity, speed and vividness.

The story is quintessential Dickens –the tale of warped souls and warped bodies trying to survive in a society that can be immensely cruel and unforgiving to those whose fortunes have been lost or squandered, or are simply nonexistent. At its center are a Grandfather (a stormy and mysterious Troy West), who loves his almost saintly young granddaughter, Nell (Lorri Hamm, who manages to give this gentle creature some real spine), not wisely but too well. A compulsive gambler, he continually puts her at risk in his misguided attempts to amass a fortune that will secure her future. In the process, he becomes the victim of the ruthless and comically lascivious moneylender, Mr. Quilp (a brilliant, gargoylelike performance by the thread-thin Thomas J. Cox, who spends much of the show in a froglike position to conjure his character's crippled legs, and who must be nearly crippled himself by the end of the show). Grandfather and his Little Nell must flee the brutal city for the countryside, where they seek peace and charity, yet often come up short even there.

It is the gallery of rogues, eccentrics and rare gentle spirits that is far more crucial than the twisted journey itself here. There is special pleasure to be had in watching many of the actors assume multiple roles, often polar opposites in type. Consider Quilp's doll-like, timid, ferociously manipulated wife, Mrs. Quilp (played to marvelous, pitiful effect by Lisa Tejero), and then watch as Tejero does a fantastic about-face as Sally Brass, the angry dragon-lady sister and business partner of Quilp's fraudulent lawyer, Sampson Brass (a deceptively benign Andrew White). Pay attention, too, to the compassionate country schoolmaster who, as it turns out, is played by Cox in a complete about-face.

And who else but Dickens could conjure a character like Dick Swiveller (embodied to deliriously perfect effect by Lawrence E. DiStasi)? A feckless fellow whose permanently lapsed work ethic and misplaced sense of entitlement camouflage a good heart, he will end up saving and savoring the little housemaid he dubs The Marchioness (enchanting work by Elizabeth Ledo, who moves about like a little mouse before her transformation into a princess).

Meanwhile, on the road, Grandfather and Nell encounter a great many traveling performers, from a swindling vaudeville-style duo who run a Punch-and-Judy puppet show, to a waxworks museum owner, the good-hearted Mrs. Jarley (the wonderfully spirited Eve Breneman, who also is a hoot as Mrs. Quilp's opportunistic mother). The waxwork figures themselves are winningly brought to life by the actors.

Brian Sidney Bembridge's massive, jigsaw puzzle-like wooden set stretches against a long wall of the theater and serves both as the all-important city bridges and a warren of forbidding offices, shops, attics and cellars. T.J. Gerckens' painterly lighting tells a story all its own, with the characters periodically striking stunning silhouetted poses that suggest the hordes of London or the figures in a rural landscape.

Although a few questions remain unanswered when it's all over, the play's engaging epilogue, supplied by The Single Gentleman, provides a delightful "Where are they all now?" summing up. Some of them are dead. On this matter, too, Dickens is eloquent. Of course, all those immortalized by this writer need not worry. They live in the imagination and dance on in this wondrous "Curiosity Shop."