A Child’s Journey to Sturbridge

Tags

A Christmas Carol film, Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Dickens Fellowship, Mark Twain, Old Sturbridge Village, The Signalman

Although my Friday alarm was set for 5.45 I woke before it and so it was easy to get ready and leave my room by 6.30. I had a three hour drive ahead of me and I was keen to get to Massachusetts by about 10am, therefore I decided to forego a hotel breakfast (as regulars know, this was a painful thing to do) and just grab something on the road. The traffic heading towards New York City was very heavy, even at that early hour, so it was as well that I left when I did.

I crawled and edged and trundled and inched and lumbered and crept, in fact I went so slowly that I would have had time to read a thesaurus if I’d had one to hand. Eventually I was passed New York and the heavy traffic was now filling the opposite carriageway and I could speed up and head towards New England. This is a journey I have done on many occasions, in one direction or the other, and it always brings to mind Charles Dickens’ American Notes, as I pass many of the cities that he visited and commented on.

After a while I pulled in at a service station and had a Panera Bread breakfast of oatmeal and fruit and a pastry, washed down with orange juice and coffee, before getting back into the Rogue and continuing north.

My destination was Old Sturbridge Village, a living museum near Worcester. I have heard a lot about it over the years but have never had the opportunity to visit, and on Friday I was to perform there. I made good time and pulled into the large car park a little after 10. My contact at Sturbridge was Ellen Taviano, with whom I have worked for many years at Winterthur House and Gardens in Delaware. Thanks to staff layoffs and changes during the pandemic, Ellen left Winterthur and took up a position at Sturbridge, heading up the retail operation. Having enjoyed such a close and successful relationship in the past she was keen to get me to to the museum to perform and the September tour proved to be the perfect opportunity. When I arrived, I left a voicemail on Ellen’s phone and made my way to the visitor centre, where the staff welcomed me and showed me into the empty auditorium where I was to perform. I say ‘I was to perform’, but actually I should say ‘where we were to perform’ for today I would be sharing the stage with fellow actor Jennifer Emerson, and this is the day I have been working towards and, yes, sometimes fretting over throughout the tour.

I took a look at the stage and saw that Ellen had placed a few articles of furniture for our set, but some were not quite right, so I took a look back stage and was delighted to find all sorts of bits and pieces that I could chose from Firstly, I pulled a few bits out, and brought them to the stage and as I did a lady dressed in an elegant Victorian gown entered the theatre, and this was Jennifer.

Jennifer has a long history in working at museums, interpreting characters and performing a series of her own one-person shows (including her version of A Christmas Carol). She has worked in costume and has directed and taught and is generally a very talented and committed go getter, and is also a member of the Dickens Fellowship.

When Ellen had chosen the shows for my visit she had asked for The Signalman (as she ordered plenty of my books), and A Child’s Journey With Dickens, which she had seen me perform at Winterthur. As soon as I saw that on the schedule I got in touch with Bob and suggested that we ask Jennifer to be involved. The performance is based around a speech made in 1912 by Kate Douglas Wiggin recounting the day that she met Charles Dickens on a train bound for Boston. The speech was made when Kate was 55, but the train journey had taken place in 1868, when she had been only 11, and the show features her at both ages. Now, I have performed it, with a degree of success in the past, but really? A balding, bearded Englishman trying to convince a New England audience that he is an 11 year girl from Maine is pushing it somewhat. Back in 2021 the Dickens Fellowship had asked me if I could give a Zoom performance, and I had suggested A Child’s Journey performed on the anniversary of the meeting on the train. One of the positives of the Covid pandemic was that it shrank the world, and people were suddenly communicating in ways that they had never realised possible. This extended to performance, and Id contacted Jennifer to ask her if she would like to work with me on the project. We developed a script together using purely archive material – letters, newspaper articles, memoirs, and of course Kate’s speech itself. As the story involved Dickens’ reading tour, we also featured a scathing review of one of his performances written by Mark Twain. Again the shrinking world had enabled me to ask yet another performer, Mark Dawidziak (who ‘does’ Twain), to record the piece for us – this was going to be a show performed by three actors each of whom specialised in performing on their own! The Zoom performance had been a great success and at the time I had said to Jennifer if there was ever a chance to actually perform it live, then we should grab it. Old Sturbridge Village was that chance.

We didn’t change the script very much, but had to think about how we would actually stage it. The idea was to have a lectern at one side of the stage where Jennifer would give the speech, as if addressing the guests at Delmonico’s restaurant in 1912, and on the other side would be a desk where I would sit as Dickens, writing letters about the tour, which were slipped into Kate’s dialogue at suitable moments. For example at one time Kate recalled praying fervently that Dickens didn’t suffer the pangs of seasickness as he sailed to America, and on that line I would recite two letters that he wrote from the SS Cuba as he sailed across the Atlantic detailing rough weather and sickness throughout the ship. The writing desk was angled away from where Kate stood, meaning that there was absolutely no connection between the two characters, until the key moment when the child Kate saw Dickens on the train, at which point we both sat next to one another on a small bench at centre stage, representing a seat in the railroad car.

When Jennifer arrived we continued foraging for the perfect furniture and when we were satisfied we started a rehearsal, our very first run through together. It went well, we both fumbled a few lines, but the the basic setting and idea seemed to work perfectly and we retired to the green room behind the stage in a state of great excitement

At 1 o’clock Ellen came to check that we were ready and then went to the stage and introduced us both and we emerged to applause. I welcomed everyone and made a very brief introduction to the show, and then introduced Kate as if I were chairing the meeting of the New York Dickens Fellowship in 1912. And so the show started. Oh, it went well, Jennifer had adopted two very different personas – the 55 year old Kate who had spent a life in education especially in the field of the Kindergarten movement, had a a teacher’s voice and demeanour, direct, factual but kindly, but as soon as she was on the train she became the 11 year old, excited fidgety, crossing and uncrossing her ankles, and gazing at her idol, Charles Dickens. I knew that all of this working superbly, although I could not see her performance as I was turned away, thanks to the laughter and joy coming from the audience. When it came to the moment that she precociously sat next to Dickens and he first saw her there was an instant connection between the two character. The audience responded wonderfully and laughed at all of the appropriate places (including during the Twain voiceover, saying of Dickens ‘His pictures are hardly handsome, and he, like everybody else, is less handsome than his pictures!’ Ouch.

Laughter turned to tears as Dickens asked Kate if she had wanted to go to his reading very much, and she had sobbed, ‘yes more than tongue can tell’ causing Dickens to cry also. Both Jennifer and I had tears in our eyes and we could see members of the audience wiping theirs too.

The applause at the end was wonderful and we knew that we had created a very special show which had worked just as we’d imagined it.

With all of the concentration and nerves that had surrounded the first act, it would have been easy to forget that I had The Signalman to perform in the second half and it required quite a mental re-set to get myself prepared for that. Actually I gave a very good performance of it, I think. It was dramatic and tight and the lines flowed well. The audience were hooked and applauded loudly when I had finished. During the applause I gestured to Jennifer (who had taken a seat in the auditorium to watch) and the clapping increased again as we both took more bows.

What a wonderful success.

After the show Ellen took me to the gift store for a signing session and it was wonderful to see many people who had come to see me in shows at other venues over the years. One man showed me a picture of me posing with his sons and said ‘Yes. that was seven years ago: look how young you look!’ Thanks!

When the signing was over I went to find my accommodation for the night. Sturbridge had built a small collection of cabins which were originally to be hotel accommodation for visitors to the museum, but Covid closed them and now they are used for staff, professors and visiting entertainers. My room was large and very comfortable and I slumped onto the bed and dozed a little for an hour or so, before it was time to return to the theatre and get changed ready for the second performance. After a while Jennifer appeared (she had stayed in costume, so hadn’t needed to arrive as early as I), and we chatted about the first show and how it had been received.

Soon Ellen appeared once more to check that all was well, and the evening show was under way. It was a larger audience than the afternoon, and once again they followed the story with rapt attention. I would say that at both performances it took a little while before everyone accepted the premise behind our performance, but it didn’t take long until they were fully involved and were laughing and crying. Once again our closing bows were met with a standing ovation.

The Signalman was also superbly received, and my most unsubtle plugging of the book was greeted with loud laughter, even applause. What a wonderful, and exciting day, and what a superb way to end what has been a difficult tour, not because of the schedule, or the venues, or the shows, but because I had wanted to be at home in England. I had wanted to file past the Queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall with Liz so that we could pay our respects to the only Monarch we have ever known; to be part of the national mourning. My home-made black arm band had been a token of my respect, but I had so wanted to do more.

After another signing session where many friends came to say hello, including Gary and Judi Vaillancourt, I returned to the theatre, got changed and collected all of my props, with the exception of the danger light, which would be collected by someone, sometime. Ellen had booked a restaurant for her, Jennifer, myself and her colleague Jacqui who had been helping with the lights and changing the set between shows. We had a lovely dinner, although conversation was awkward due to a singer who was performing throughout the evening. He was very good and had a wonderful set of songs, but with my tinitus it made hearing conversation extremely problematic.

The restaurant was emptying as we finished our dinner and it was clear that they wanted to close, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to our respective homes and lodges.

Saturday

On Saturday I would be flying home, but the morning was taken up to roaming around Old Sturbridge Village, and what an amazing place it is. The attraction was opened in 1946 and featured various historical New England buildings that had been dismantled and moved to the site. Now it covers 200 acres and features 59 properties. There is a blacksmith, a pottery, a cooper and various mills, all working. There are farms with cattle, sheep and pigs, there are demonstrations of 19th century cooking and crafting, and all in all it is a fascinating place to spend a day. On Saturday the sun shone, and I not only visited all of the properties, but also took the trails into woods and across pasture – I even ran a little.

After lunch it was time to head to the Logan Airport in Boston and board a 777 to fly home to a different England to the one I left 10 days before.

The Drood Dudes

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Dickens Fellowship, The Drood Dudes, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Spires Academy, The Woman in White

After the fallow period of recent years, the spring of 2022 is proving to be a busy one as I travel around the country performing in a wide variety of venues. Having returned from Preston on Monday morning, I had a day to collect my thoughts before heading off once more on Wednesday, south this time, to the city of Canterbury in Kent, the county of my birth.

I was due to visit The Spires Academy, a relatively new school, built in 2007 in a rural setting to the east of the city. This would be a second visit to Spires for me, where the year 10 students are studying A Christmas Carol for their GCSE course. It is a impressive modern building, standing proudly with its lime green cladding welcoming visitors into a large central atrium, which acts not only as a dining hall at lunchtime but also as a performance space.

My contact at the school is one of the English teachers, Sarah Turrell, who is also a keen member of the Dickens Fellowship, and she loves to share her passion for Dickens with her students. Sarah has come to many of my shows in Kent over the years and is currently writing an article about the teaching of Dickens in the modern era for that most academic of journals, The Dickensian.

The journey was a beautiful one with the chill of early March giving way to Spring, there were even fields of Rape beginning to paint their broad, yellow splashes across the countryside, and the blossom of trees speckled the deep blue sky. I arrived at 11.30, and Sarah was there to meet me and help me unload. With the help of the facilities staff we found a small cupboard in the main atrium to store my furniture and then headed up three floors to a conference room (in my day, schools never had ‘conference rooms’!)

My first commitment of the day was to meet a small group of students who, inspired by Sarah, had formed their own Dickens Society within the school. The group comes from a wide variety of year groups (yrs 8 – 11) and meet at lunchtimes when their respective timetables allow. Sarah’s suggestion to the team was that they study Charles Dickens’ final, unfinished novel, and try to create their own solution to ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’, and it is this project that gave the group its name: The Drood Dudes.

Before the group arrived, in dribs and drabs from their various morning lessons, Sarah gave me a printed essay, showing what has been achieved so far, and I only had time to cast a very quick eye over it before the seats around the table were full and we began to chat. ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood….Unveiled. A Work in Progress’ is not only an amazing feat of imagination, but also a great piece of well-researched writing too. Students have paired up and worked on specific chapters, and making sure that the language that they use is suitably Victorian in structure. An example:

”The cabin windows blurred by innumerable layers of smog which further added to the uncomfortable aura that had latched onto the room. ‘Where were you on the night of the storm, Miss Budd?’ Gerald’s tone had indicated that he had no longer been welcoming of her diversion to his prompts. Stubborn in her innocence, her annoyance had quickly been replaced with a monotone seriousness. Straightening her posture and clasping her hands together, she responded.

‘My homestead. And only my homestead’

Yes! the detective introduced to the story to get to the bottom of the disappearance of Edwin Drood, is named in my honour, although the character is certainly not an accurate representation of me, for later the narrative mentions that ‘Gerald could tolerate no more. Adjusting his hair, he exclaimed ‘Miss Bud, I think I’ve heard enough.’ It has been many years since I have been able to adjust my hair.

We went through the piece chapter by chapter and the authors of each talked through their inspiration and the motivation for steering the plot as they did.

When Charles Dickens was writing Drood, during the early months of 1870, it was his first novel for 5 years, and marked a new direction: a mystery novel. Perhaps influenced, or piqued, by the success of his good friend Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, Dickens set out to weave as many false avenues and red herrings as he could into the plot. Unfortunately, Charles Dickens died on June 9 1870 when only 6 of the planned 12 monthly instalments had been published, meaning that he unwittingly created one of the greatest mystery novels ever written – one that had no denouement. He didn’t leave a detailed plan behind him, although a few letters to friends have a few suggestions as to where the plot may have lead. But, as one of the leading Dickensian scholars pointed out to me a few years ago, if you stop reading Great Expectations at the half way point you would have no clue what is to come, and it is reasonable that Charles would have pulled the same trick with Drood.

I shall not tell you what conclusion the Dudes have come to, for I hope that when the piece is complete I may be able to share it in its entirety, but it is obvious that they have considered and discussed every angle of their plot and stand by it. As we chatted I threw a few alternative thoughts into the mix, not because I felt they were needed, or superior, but because I was keen to hear them defend their choices, which they firmly and passionately did.

When we had finished discussing their work Sarah asked if I would sign copies of The Mystery of Edwin Drood for each of the Dudes, and as I signed they asked me questions about Dickens and one man theatre, until the bell rang heralding the end of a truly exciting morning.

It is obvious that Sarah has inspired this group of students, and they all have immense pride not only in what they have created but also of their society (they even have their own handshake!). In a world that is so fraught with negativity at the moment, this hour was a shining beacon of positivity and hope for the future.

Sarah took me to the dining hall where we met the school’s interim principal, David Thornton, who said that he had never known such success in an extra curricular club.

After a quick lunch the hall was cleared and a stage erected. I just had time to place all of my props, and change before the year 10s arrived – a typical bunch of secondary school pupils: some noisy, some quiet, some defiant, some intrigued, some confident, some troubled. When everyone was seated, the head of the English department welcomed the group with dire warnings about behaviour, and then welcomed me to the stage. I started the show by talking a bit about how and why Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, as the exam syllabus calls for a degree of contextual knowledge as well as a familiarity with the book itself, and then began. This was the first time that I had performed A Christmas Carol since 23 December in Leicester, but the words and movements came back to me as if I had done it the day before.

It wasn’t an easy performance, for the space was cavernous and the audience was not altogether attentive (two members being removed and sent to a classroom to write essays in silence), but I was pleased with what I did. I am currently writing a book about my performances of A Christmas Carol, which includes a detailed account of how I perform each scene, and it was interesting to recall my written words as I performed. I became a lot more aware of where I was on the stage and how I delivered the various lines, and mentally stored some details for the next time I write. The show had a slight break in the middle as there was a bell heralding a change of lessons, and the hall being at the centre of the school building would become packed with students moving from one room to another, so we had agreed that I would simply pause and wait until peace was restored. While I sat on stage during the hiatus some of the students shouted out ‘Mr Dickens! Can we have a selfie with you later?’ I said yes, and the request came in from others too….

When I resumed, my main concern was the timing of the show, as I had to be finished before the school day ended at 3.15. Fortunately there was a clock on the wall opposite me and I could carefully make decisions as to how much of the text to included so that I finished and left time for some questions. I said the final ‘God Bless Us, Every One’ with 10 minutes to spare, and the year 10s gave me loud and raucous applause, born to some extent out of the relief to be able to make noise again! When the tumult had died down I took questions for a while, the answers to only a few of which were going to help the students in the exam, for example I doubt the paper will ask for my age, or details of how much I earn, but it was a fun session nonetheless.

At 3.15 the bell sounded the end of the day and the group dispersed, although plenty of students gathered around to take their selfies with me, before heading home. Soon the atrium was quiet once more, and having changed I loaded the car, said farewell to Sarah and headed back onto the road.

As I drove away I smiled at the memory of a successful day, but in particularly of my hour in the company of a talented, enthusiastic and inspiring group of students: Maxwell, Jasmin, Honey, Ryan, James, Chloe, Maisie, Rosenevi, Jasmine, Katy, Ali, Phoebe, Kaiya and, of course, Sarah: The Drood Dudes.