Penny Penniworth by Chris Weikel (He/Him/His)
Chris Weikel’s Off-Broadway hit PENNY PENNIWORTH is a labyrinthine romp through 19th century English literature as presented by a severely short-staffed theatre troupe with Royal Shakespeare Company pretensions, who decide to produce a “lost” Dickens epic. The eponymous Penny, a down-on-her-luck Dickensian waif, deprived of her fortune and her country estate by the untimely death of her hapless father (Her...
Chris Weikel’s Off-Broadway hit PENNY PENNIWORTH is a labyrinthine romp through 19th century English literature as presented by a severely short-staffed theatre troupe with Royal Shakespeare Company pretensions, who decide to produce a “lost” Dickens epic. The eponymous Penny, a down-on-her-luck Dickensian waif, deprived of her fortune and her country estate by the untimely death of her hapless father (Her father’s name is actually Hapless, as it happens), must go off to London and navigate her way among unscrupulous suitors, incorrigible urchins and anonymous benefactors. After throwing herself on the mercy of the family solicitor, Mr. Bunting (of the firm Bunting Bunting and Swagg, naturally) Penny and her mother are sent to live with the slightly deranged Miss Havasnort to cater to her every whim. Penny soon becomes prey of the roguish Rupert Stryfe, Heir to the House of Stryfe. What is an innocent young girl to do? The play is a tour-de-force for four actors who portray a cavalcade of comic characters in a gender-bending tale of true love thwarted, wealth, deception, abduction and true love regained. As Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote: “Chris Weikel, the playwright, knows that Dickens is practically his own parody; his story about a young maid who loses love and then, through a preposterously circuitous journey, finds it again is exaggerated only ever so slightly from what Dickens might have written.” Genzlinger went on to declare that PENNY PENNIWOTH “deserves to become a staple.” Frank Scheck of the New York Post wrote that PENNY PENNIWORTH “is sharp, fast and funny, especially for those who've suffered from one Dickens adaptation too many.” And Fern Siegel of The Huffington Post called it “clever” & “witty” and went on to say “Playwright Chris Weikel lampoons British accents and famous literary characters with expertise”