‘The story has a deep magic to it’: The Dictionary of Lost Words finds another chapter
Verity Laughton’s stage adaptation of Pip Williams literary bestseller became a runaway hit for State Theatre Company South Australia. As the play returns to Adelaide for a victory lap, Laughton and Williams reflect on its enduring appeal.
Verity Laughton, playwright
What do you love about this story?
I love the fact that the story beds an individual life so seamlessly within (Western) political, cultural and social history. Esme is an everywoman, a seemingly ordinary girl whose life’s achievement is encapsulated in what she passes on to her daughter Megan, the child she gives away.
It navigates a version of the losses and recompenses that thread through most people’s lives with tenderness and empathy, but it does so in context of intellectual passion — the great project of the Oxford English Dictionary – and massive societal upheavals — the issue of female suffrage and the monstrosity of the First World War.
Can you give us some insights into how you adapted it for the stage, condensing it for a live audience?
The adaptation is hard to describe precisely because the work involved is such a mixture of intuition and technical requirements. But I can say that I always do a lot of research before any writing project and this was no different, so I felt enmeshed in the ‘world of the play’ before I began. And that the actual writing did not begin until I got a flash of the three-dimensionality of the piece, until I ‘saw’ it working on a stage.
Playwright Verity Laughton
I had a notion of the set evolving from one location to another through Oxford, the fantasy city of intellectual achievement. In the end designer Jonathon Oxlade brilliantly encapsulated all my meanderings into the one great image of the Scriptorium that then lent itself via Trent Suidgeest’s lighting to the kind of changing landscape I’d imagine. And Jess Arthur brought her skill of flow and movement to transforming many of the more static moments in the script to a staging that again reflected that initial sense of flow.
And yes, Dictionary is a big story, there are so many events to be marshalled into the telling and thus lots of choices about what to include, and what must be cut to fit the demands of the stage. I wanted to reflect the chronology of the novel as much as possible because I knew this was a beloved book whose readership would hope to re-experience the book in present time.
But sometimes I did have to collapse incidents into each other or cut or change a situation. For example, many of Esme’s key realisations happen internally in the book but the stage demands a highly active protagonist, so I had to externalise some of those. Also, the book rests on Esme’s profound charm but you arrive at a sense of that through the beautiful sense of circularity that Pip builds over the course of the book. I had to make Esme charming (sometimes sneakily so because part of her charm is that she is so secret) through the dialogue and some of her actions.
It’s no accident that the three actors who have played Esme — Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Brenna Harding and now Shannen Alyce Quan — are all people of immense personal charm.
Will this version be any different to the smash hit production of 2023?
This version is a little different from the production of 2023 because we had the luxury — so unusual in Australia — of working the script further and fine-tuning it against an audience. Audiences often don’t realise that they are the final and crucial part of the making of a show. You sit in the auditorium night after night, and you learn what kind of live beast it is.
The 2023 version was a bit front-loaded, which reflects the book, with a longish first half. I didn’t want to tamper with that first up because I was worried about losing the tonal feel of the whole. But by the time the 2025 season came around, I — together with other members of the creative team such as Jess and the original commissioner, Mitchell Butel — was clear where we could save those precious minutes of stage time. So, there was one large cut — the classic ‘kill your darling’ — and a number of precise trimmings. I’m very pleased with the result.
How have audiences reacted to the stage version of this award-winning book? Why does it resonate with audiences so deeply?
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People seem to love it. I do think the story has a deep magic to it; it reflects a particular female experience with a wonderfully coherent sense of place and time. And it does so in a way that makes allies of the men the women in the story love or need.
There are several characters who exemplify ‘the good father’ though not in a sentimental way — these men do have their flaws! Nevertheless, the way the characters relate to each other models a hopeful way of engaging with the ‘necessary others’ in our lives. And we need hope right now because sadly we find ourselves living in very dark times. There are also aspects of the story which are quite dream-like — the way particular images and characters keep recurring in another form.
For my sins I have made quite a study of dream and myth, and I think there is a mythic element to Pip’s storytelling, so I dived into that a bit too. However, I can’t give you chapter and verse of that process because finding that quality is a bit deep and secret in a way that doesn’t hold up to the logical light of day. It just is.
The Dictionary of Lost Words. Photo: Prudence Upton / Supplied
How do you feel when you sit in the audience and see the final product up there – your work come to life?
Nervous as hell every time!
What was the high point for you working on this project?
Because the world is not perfect, and we have no right to expect perfection and of course I am not perfect myself(!) I have only occasionally worked on a show where every single other person was just plain brilliant. I feel very lucky to have shared this project with them all. Also, I learned a lot. And I really like learning.
Pip Williams, author
How does it feel to see your debut novel find such success and longevity on the stage?
When I sat down to write this story I thought of a reader in some quiet place, conjuring Oxford and Esme and the people of the Dictionary in their own quiet way. It was enough to think that they might carry the story around with them for a while and perhaps share it with a friend. What I never imagined was seeing my story, hearing it and feeling it, with an audience.
Author Pip Williams
Verity’s adaptation, Jess’s Direction, all the actors and the incredible set, costumes, music and lighting have conjured something I never could with just words. This play is rich and beautiful, funny and poignant and I am not surprised that audiences love it.
I have seen it eight times now, most recently in Sydney with a brand-new cast. It is deeply humbling to sit in the dark and feel the audience engage with this story, and I am so grateful to everyone who has brought their own creativity and talent to the production.
The Dictionary of Lost Words opens at the Dunstan Playhosue from April 3 – 17