Eddie Izzard works some magic in one-woman adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, (photo by Bruce Glikas)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Tuesday – Sunday through January 22, $60-$99
www.eddieizzardgreatexpectations.com

Eddie Izzard is absolutely delightful portraying approximately twenty characters in her one-woman retelling of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, continuing at the Greenwich House Theater through January 22. Adapted by Izzard’s brother, Mark, into a taut two hours (with intermission) from the five-hundred-plus-page 1861 novel, it’s a classic British coming-of-age story divided into three stages of the life of one Philip Pirrip. The Aden-born, two-time Emmy-winning, Tony-nominated actor, comedian, and activist — who is exactly 150 years younger than Dickens to the day — looks fabulous in spiky blond hair and a steampunk goth costume (by Tom Piper and Libby da Costa) consisting of a ruffled V-neck white blouse, form-fitting black coat, black skirt, black stockings, and knee-high lace-up black boots. Piper’s set features lush red drapery in the front and the dilapidated facade of a white house with graying, torn curtains in the back, emblematic of the faded royalty of Miss Havisham, one of the most memorable figures in all of literature.

Izzard is Pip, the book’s narrator, who sets the tone and scene in the opening monologue:

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself Pip. I never saw my father or my mother, never saw any likeness of either of them, for their days were long before the days of photographs, that wondrous new invention. Ours was the marsh country, south and east of London by the Thames river, within twenty miles of the sea. On a raw afternoon towards evening I found out that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana, wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that five little stone lozenges, arranged in a neat row beside, were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine. I also discovered that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard was the marshes, and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea, and that Pip was the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all.

Pip is seven when the tale begins, living with his sole remaining sibling, his mean sister, who is married to the kind blacksmith Joe Gargery. Wallking through the marshes, Pip is accosted by a dangerous-looking man, Abel Magwitch, who declares, “Hold your noise, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!” He demands that Pip bring him food and an iron file, and Pip obliges, seeing no other choice, stealing the items, including a Christmas pork pie, that was meant for such family and friends as Mr. Wopsle, Uncle Pumblechook, and the Hubbles. “I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, just as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong,” he admits, a theme that runs through his life, which takes its next turn when he is summoned by the mysterious spinster Miss Havisham, who wants the poor Pip to play with her adopted daughter, Estella.

Eddie Izzard is superb as Pip and everyone else in Great Expectations (photo by Bruce Glikas)

Pip, who learned how to read from the orphan Biddy, is desperate to become a gentleman, and the surprise opportunity arises when a London lawyer named Jaggers arrives, explaining to Joe that a benefactor wishing to remain anonymous is offering Pip the chance to study in the city and, indeed, become a gentleman. “I have come to relieve you of your apprentice,” Jaggers says to Joe. “The communication I have to make is that this young fellow has great expectations.”

Those “great expectations” lead Pip to meet London tutor Matthew Pocket, son of Herbert Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin; Jaggers’s clerk, Mr. Wemmick; rival scholar Bentley Drummle; Magwitch’s fellow convict, Compeyson; the merchant Clarriker; and Clara Barley, who takes a liking to Herbert. The adaptation has cut a few figures from the story, including Miss Havisham’s younger half-brother, Arthur; blacksmith Dolge Orlick; Wemmick’s friend Miss Skiffins; and another of Pip’s fellow students, Startop.

Izzard, who has appeared in such films as Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen, The Lego Batman Movie, and Whiskey Galore!, such television series as The Riches, Hannibal, and Powers, and such plays as The Cryptogram, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, and Race, is dyslexic; as a challenge, she recorded Great Expectations as an audiobook, the first major literary work she had ever read, and in doing so decided to make it into a solo show. She has a graceful, commanding stage presence onstage, smoothly transitioning between roles with just a twist of her body and a slight change of voice; the subtle movement direction is by Didi Hopkins. Izzard’s clear familiarity with the text and understanding of the material help her develop a quick rapport with the audience, who cannot help but root for Pip, a character previously played by such actors as John Mills, Roddy McDowall, Michael York, and Ethan Hawke.

The Izzards and director Selina Cadell (Love for Love, The Life I Lead) create a menacing Victorian atmosphere, especially when it comes to Miss Havisham; when she is in a scene, Tyler Elich/Lightswitch turns down the lights onstage and up on either side of the audience, an eerie glow building slowly to correspond with the ghostliness of Miss Havisham’s existence. You can practically see and smell the (nonexistent) decaying, rat-eaten bride-cake in the corner, the remnants of her being left at the altar many years before.

“As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had begun to notice their effect upon me and those around me and I knew very well that it was not all good,” Izzard says as Pip about halfway through the play. Izzard lives up to expectations, and it is all good.