(Above: Standing on a table, the orphan Oliver, played by Audriahna Jones, surrounded by Fagin’s boys, played by Zoe Goings, Quinn Branstetter, Jayshing Goolsby, Matthew Michaels, Elizabeth Blakely, Jayling Goolsby, and Mariah Bailey; photos by Emily Bly)
By Randi Bjornstad
As the December days get darker, the Cottage Theatre stage lights up with its final show of the 2019 season, a classic musical, Oliver!, which premiered in London’s West End a whopping 59 years ago and has been popular ever since.
As with many of Victorian British author Charles Dickens’ voluminous novels, the plot of Oliver!, based on his Oliver Twist, centers on the privations and pluck of a young boy who confronts overshelming social and financial deprivation but manages to maintain his underlying sense of right and wrong until good fortune comes his way in the form of assistance from a good-hearted benefactor.
In Oliver’s case, he’s an orphan who is sent from the orphanage in which he lives into apprenticeship with an undertaker who mistreats him until he escapes and is taken in by a band of boys who are the pickpocketing tools of a career criminal named Fagin.
He remains in the underworld organization until he is arrested for a theft he did not commit, and the victim, a kindly man named Brownlow, senses Oliver’s potential and takes him into his own household.
That’s not the end of the boy’s troubles, though, because Fagin plots to regain control over him out of fear that through Oliver his own underground operation will be discovered and dismantled, casting him into the legal system for all the wrongs he has perpetrated.
Not surprisingly, Oliver! has a happy ending, although there are some tragic emotional losses along the way, and the musical also bestows the gift on theatergoers of a raft of memorable songs which have been belted out for decades since — chief among them Food, Glorious Food as well as Consider Yourself, Reviewing the Situation, and As Long as He Needs Me.
Janet Rust directs the Cottage Theatre’s version of Oliver!, with Mark VanBeever in charge of musical production, costume design by Chris Carter, sets by Tony Rust, and lighting by Amanda Ferguson.
Actors include Audriahna Jones as Oliver and Matthew Michaels as the Artful Dodger, Tony Rust as Fagin, Kory Weimer as Bill Sykes, Tracy Nygard as Nancy, John Wilson as Mr. Bumble, and Trinity Riddell as Widow Corney, plus a large supporting cast of orphans, pickpockets, and townspeople.
The 2020 season begins in late January with Arsenic and Old Lace and continues with Mamma Mia in April, Seeking Red in June, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in August, The Hunchback of Notre Dame in October, and Elf the Musical next December.
Oliver! at the Cottage Theatre
When: Evenings at 8 p.m. on Dec. 6-7, 12-14, 19-21, with matinees at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 15, and 22
Where: Cottage Theatre, 700 Village Drive, Cottage Grove (east of the I-5 freeway; Row River Road to Jim Wright Way to Village Drive)
Tickets: $25 adults, $15 youths 18 years and younger; available at the box office, 541-942-8001, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday or online at cottagetheatre.org
The large cast of Cottage Theatre’s Oliver! includes (front row, left to right) Matthew Michaels, Tracy Nygard, Audriahna Jones, Ashlee Winkler and (back row, left to right) Jayshing Goolsby, Quinn Branstetter, Elizabeth Blakely, Jayling Goolsby,Tony Rust, Mariah Bailey and Zoe Goings
