To Begin With

New Century Theatre
615 Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis

In this witty and insightful new creation, the award-winning Hatcher imagines the struggle Dickens has in creating an adaptation of the Biblical Gospels, to be performed for his children on Christmas Eve, 1849. The play opens with the taunting of Dickens by his 12-year-old neighbor, Algernon Charles Swinburne, who later would become one of England’s most renowned writers. This unpleasant encounter spurs Dickens to write a tale quite unlike his usual fiction. As he wrestles with the text and how to best present it to a brood that ranges from 2 to 10 years of age, he is distracted by his anxieties for them, and by his reflections on the society in which they will live. The result is a play that explores the conflicts, emotions and self-doubts of the great writer with humor and insight.