The Dictionary of Lost Words: Pip Williams’ Beloved Novel Translates Beautifully To Stage

Pip Williams’ wildly successful debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words translates beautifully to the stage thanks in part to the talents of designer Jonathon Oxlade.

He fills the back wall of the room where the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is being compiled in the late 19th century with pigeon-holes for the slips bearing the names of individual words. It’s quite a striking image and reveals at a glance the tedious and time-consuming work of those first OED compilers in their “scriptorium,” which was actually a garden shed.  

Played by Brian Meegan, Sir James Murray, the principal editor of the OED, began the letter “A” in 1879 and died in 1915 when working on the letter S”. 

Beneath the sorting desk of the lexicographers sits four-year-old Esme Nicoll, who has lost her mother in childbirth and whose father works in the “Scrippy” beside James Murray. Wonderfully portrayed by Shannen Alyce Quan both as a child and as an adult, Esme collects the discarded slips of words that fail to make it to that first edition, “bondmaid” being the first. Thus begins a lifetime of fascination with words as she follows in the footsteps of her father.  

Responsible for the marvellous stage adaptation, Verity Laughton retains the central focus on the budding lexicographer who chafes against the restrictions placed on women as she grows older. “I want to decide my life for me,” she says rebelliously. 

Her life parallels the women’s suffrage movement, and indeed, it is the rejected women’s words she collects that save important aspects of women’s experience, and therefore their history.

Esme forms a lifelong friendship with Lizzie Lester, the maid in her household (played by Kathryn Adams), and uses Lizzie’s wooden trunk to store the word slips she collects from the Scrippy. And she befriends Mabel, one of the uneducated women in the marketplace (played with great humour by Ksenia Logos). From her, Esme learns many slang and obscene words relating to women, which she collects, of course. 

The curious Esme wishes to experience sex, and gets pregnant to Bill (James Smith), whom she likes as a friend but does not wish to marry. She gives birth to a girl but gives up the child for adoption, and it is this event that has unforeseen but marvellous consequences when the baby’s future is revealed in 1936 Australia. 

Esme is delighted when Bill publishes all the slips she has saved in her very own dictionary, which he presents to her. 

Director Jessica Arthur cleverly employs a lamp that shines down on a table in the Scriptorium under which various objects and messages that are passed beneath are projected onto a large screen above the wall of pigeonholes. Thus, for example, among many other things, we learn the address of the real Scriptorium from the front of an envelope illuminated by the lamp. We can also tell that Esme hates the boarding school she has been sent to by the scribbles and words such as “Alone” and “Punish” projected onto the screen from the paper she has written on. This clever device allows many things to be conveyed to the audience additional to the script.   

Arthur directs eight actors, five of whom play multiple roles, and they propel the story of Esme through the journey of her life from age 4 to 40, when Sir James Murray dies. 

This gentle and thought-provoking play ended on a surprisingly positive note and left the audience thrilled with its performance.  

Congratulations to the STC, the cast, director, the excellent crew, and especially the composer, whose music contributed so much to the effect of the production. Oh, and the costumes were terrific too! 

The Dictionary of Lost Words is showing at Roslyn Packer Theatre until 22 March.