Hard Times by Charles Dickens / adapt. Bart DeLorenzo
Evidence Room
Blake Robbins and Ames Ingham photo: Jason Adams
Lisa Black and Don Oscar Smith photo: Jason Adams
Lisa Black, Liz Davies, Ames Ingham, Ben Mesmer, Janellen Steininger, Jan Munroe, and Don Oscar Smith photo: Jason Adams
Blake Robbins and Ames Ingham photo: Jason Adams
“In his staging at the Evidence Room – a cavernous space well suited to Dickens’ expansive concerns – director/adaptor Bart DeLorenzo does a heroic job dramatizing what Dickens’ eminent contemporary, Thomas Macaulay, dismissed as "sullen socialism." DeLorenzo retains Dickens’ language but jettisons high stage diction for more contemporary American speech – a surprisingly successful tactic that humanizes Dickens' famously overblown characters.” – F. Kathleen Foley, Los Angeles Times
“This splendid production of Charles Dickens’s lesser known, least sentimental novel was adapted by its director Bart De Lorenzo at The Evidence Room. It is a reminder of how rich and funny Dickens’s language is, how humane and colorful his characters and how searingly saddeningly contemporary many of his themes still are… De Lorenzo has selected narratives from the text to be performed by different cast members. This keeps Dickens's voice firmly in control and reminds you whose world you’re in. The strong pacing and dramatic staging which are his trademarks are well interpreted by an excellent ensemble.” -- Laura Hitchcock, Curtain Up
World premiere adaptation at the Evidence Room, May 2004