←Recommendations of (re)Dressing Miss Havisham

The title immediately caught my attention, as Miss Havisham has fascinated me since I was a kid. With "Re(dressing) Miss Havisham," John Minigan crafts a witty, intelligent, and emotionally resonant exploration of Charles Dickens, Miss Havisham, and the stories we inherit about love, ambition, and solitude. By intertwining scholarship with lived experience, the play becomes a moving meditation on identity, artistic purpose, and the choices that shape a life.

A brilliant script and a challenging role for any actor lucky enough to be cast.

I love how (Re)Dressing Miss Havisham is not just a feminist twist on an old story but a delving into her character - to the most minute details and coming up with a theory that Dickens may not have meant - but he clearly wrote. Beginning with a criminologist investigation and using excerpts from the book, Minigan skillfully weaves a tale of how Miss Havisham came to be, how she gambled and won and lost - as gamblers do. A tour de force for an actress and a compelling mystery.

"Hold on" you're in for a ride whether you're a lover of Great Expectations or not, this play is just simply magical and, look out, interactive! I love the psychological investigation of the fictional characters--both our effervescent narrator and Miss Haversham herself. I totally "got" the identification with Miss H. Even at a young age. Favorite line: "I set [the clocks] to the moment just before. So that I might live in the time before my expectations were dashed." Bravo.

In this feminist examination of Dickens’ archetypical tragic spinster, John Minigan’s impressive research skills are on full display. In fact, they’re part of the play itself, as an actress who identifies with Miss Havisham tries to understand why Dickens created her as he did, why she died, and how her loneliness, pride and shame may be reflected in her own life—even as she insists that unlike her subject, she is happy and free. Part adaptation, part literary criticism, and part true crime investigation, this one-woman show packs a well-earned emotional punch.