Alice Josephs:
12 Jun. 2021
“
These intertwined monologues of Charles Dickens and wife Kate are devastating in their simplicity. He wove acclaimed stories for entertainment, but here stories are a vindictive ‘legal’ weapon, forcing us to question what happens when the wronged wife is turned into a ‘character’ for legal purposes. And false storytelling, including unfitness as wife and mother, readily accepted, backed up by Dickens’ status as family patriarch and beloved author. As effective in modern as well as period dress, specifics of the Dickens’s separation take on universal resonance in the #MeToo age of fake news and the court of public opinion. ”