On Monday, 27 February, we went to the theatre in Tolmin, where we watched a theatre play by Charles Dickens called Oliver Twist. It was performed by American Drama Group Europe.
There were five actors, 3 women and 2 men, but each of them played several characters. The acting was very good considering the fact that they had to remember all of the script, which was especially hard since they had to play so many characters. In many cases girls played boys and boys played girls. It must be pretty difficult not to mess up any scenes in the play and to switch from one character to another in such a short time.
The story of Oliver Twist is about a boy, whose mother died right after she gave birth to him. Oliver spent most of his childhood in a workhouse with other kids, where they worked very hard and got very little to eat. After escaping the workhouse, Oliver joined thieves, but he quickly ran away from them as well. An old wealthy man took him in his house and took care of him nicely, but then the thieves kidnapped him, because they were scared that Oliver would betray them to the police. Later in the story, we found out that the old man was Oliver’s grandpa and eventually Oliver lived with him.
It was very nice how they used singing in the story since the theme alone is very sad and depressing. But in some parts of the story singing didn’t quite fit in, so it came out a little weird.
Their costumes were appropriate for the story and it’s quite fascinating how they managed to change so quickly. There weren’t a lot of objects used, however it was just enough for us to understand what was going on.
I think that the actors presented the story to us very nicely and it was easy to understand. I also liked how they made it funny, so it wasn’t all so serious. However, some parts were just too goofy and it made the story look weird.
Zala Kogoj, 9. b
