Director Goes to Great Length

Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens’ supreme fictional tour guide of the highs and lows of Victorian England, doesn’t withstand the mounting injustices thrown in his way without a fight. And if you want to stage David Edgar’s epic, two-part adaptation of “Nicholas Nickleby,” you can’t expect to do it without a struggle, either.

So, when Dean Hess, theater director and Cal State Fullerton arts school associate dean, proposed the Dickens / Edgar opus about 18 months ago to the school’s committee responsible for setting the production schedule, he held his breath a little.

“I was looking for a large-scale work for a lot of actors,” recalled Hess, a stocky, energetic 25-year member of the drama faculty at Cal State Fullerton. “I thought to myself, ‘Now wouldn’t “Nicholas Nickleby” be a remarkable production to attempt?’ ” Hess added chuckling, half at realizing that he’s pulled it off (it opens Thursday night in the university’s Little Theatre), half at his chutzpah for even trying.

Hess knew what he was asking of himself and his respected department. Edgar’s adaptation, which went on to a triumphant tour, including a 1986 engagement at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre, originally clocked in at 8 1/2 hours, with 123 speaking parts and nearly as many costume changes. (Hess reports that his trims shave more than an hour off the performance time.)

Throw in the problems of preventing backstage traffic jams with an ensemble of 35 (almost all graduate students, led by Tom Loeprich as Nickleby), maintaining a steady pace and keeping Dickens’ novel on track, and you have a project that threatens to resemble more of a military operation than a play.

“I look at all of the costumes on the racks,” Hess said, “and I think, ‘My God, what have I done to these people?’ I’m pooped and so are a lot of people. It’ll be a couple of years before we tackle anything like this again.”

*

And yes, Hess said, he did have to fight for “Nicholas Nickleby.” But it was more a matter of finding the right balance of shows for the season for both the music and theater departments, which assist each other.

“Both departments have developed an amazing relationship over the years, so we’ll provide them the stagecraft skills for their opera productions, and they’ll provide us with music and musicians for our shows.”

Hess said his directorial tastes make him ideal for this kind of epic theater. He says he loves putting on musicals and has mounted many of the school’s operas.

Edgar, who wrote the adaptation during a long process of improvisations and collective work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1979 and 1980, conceived of “Nicholas Nickleby” as less a piece of psychological realism than as a social tapestry that would show, in his words, “that material self-interest is neither the first nor most effective motor of human behavior.” Hess’ style as a “technical director” is perhaps the best way to attack this material.

“I believe that an actor should put on a character like clothing, from the outside, and then go inside,” he says, adding that other directors in the department work differently, thus providing students with a range of theatrical approaches.

The character-as-clothing strategy proves shrewdly practical when touring the backstage costume department to peruse the endless racks of costumes Hess’ students put on and take off between scenes.

“This is the kind of show this department thrives on, that requires everyone’s best and fullest effort. And my cast did their homework ahead of time. I think they know they’re not going to have an experience quite like this again.”

* “Nicholas Nickleby” is presented in two parts at Cal State Fullerton’s Little Theatre, 800 N. State College Blvd. Part 1 performances: today, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Tuesday and March 6, 8 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. Part 2 performances: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, March 7 and 8, 8 p.m.; March 9, 5 p.m. Ends March 9. $6-$8. (714) 773-3371.