Havisham ★★★★★

The abiding image of Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations is of a woman neither living or dead, but frozen in time at the moment of her greatest trauma. Jilted at the altar, she remains in the decaying mansion Satis House, with the wedding breakfast and rotting wedding cake in front of her, forever nurturing her unappeasable desolation. While she remains an eidolic presence in the book, Heather Alexander truly brings her to life in this self-penned work.

While Dickens sketched out the skeleton of Havisham’s history in his classic novel, this engrossing production puts flesh on the bones and allows the character to be a fully-rounded, living and breathing person. Without a mother, she is brought up in a world dominated and manipulated by men. Her father may be wealthy but is uncaring towards the young Havisham, leaving her to be brought up by the servants. This situation worsen with the birth of her needy, illegitimate brother. And so begins a painful, confusing journey into adulthood – enduring abuse and violation at the hands of the church and local men. Alexander plays the younger Havisham with such conviction, the audience wills the character to find her voice and to be able to express the “No” she yearns to say. 

The stage setting is simple and effective: just some crates, white sheets and a small wooden two-step ladder which are moved to create a dining room table, a doorway, church pews etc. It could be argued that the production might be stripped back even further, some create choreography occasional taking the audience out of the story. Where the minimal set works incredibly effectively is the use of the two-step ladder. In the telling of her first traumatic event, she steps up on the ladder to look down on herself, symbolically creating a disassociation from her body and what is happening to her.