The Dictionary of Lost Words review – stage adaptation of bestseller finds power in the silences

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“I want to decide my life myself,” says Esme Nichols, the fictional heroine of Pip Williams's 2020 bestselling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words. Esme has spent her entire life around scriptorium or "scrippy" tables workplace of real Sir James Murray, editor-in-chief of Oxford English Dictionary. Murray worked on dictionary, starting with letter A 1879, until his death in 1915, when they worked on volumes of S. While her mother childbirth, Esme grew up at feet of her father and other men. Who worked for him? Williams's novel uses this historical canvas to tell a girl's coming-of-age story set in a world where women often cannot chart their own lives. From a four-year-old girl in 1886 to a fully grown and complex woman in 1915, Esme's growth takes place against backdrop of the scriptorium's massive project as world around her changes. While all this is happening, Esme is collecting her own such as slang words, vulgar and women's words that are not considered suitable for the dictionary. Jonathon Oxlade's stage design is one of the highlights of the production. The lovely Tilda Cobham-Hervey plays Esme in Verity Laughton's stage adaptation, directed by Jessica Arthur and a co-production between the State Theater Company of South Australia and the Sydney Theater Company. The large, bright stage is surrounded by a wall of faintly backlit squares pigeonholes housing the chirrups' lyrics; Oxford's post boxes; home shelves with teapots. Much of Williams's story is silent; It takes place among small affairs in shed where words in dictionary are sorted, and between fragments of words Esme collects from women to tell stories that official records will not remember. But occasionally it transports us to a much wider world a crowded market or bar, suffrage marches, hospitals full of shell-shocked soldiers. It stars Raj Labade Gareth, Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Esme and Rachel Burke Lizzy. It's a complex story to bring to the stage in this wider world. Verity Laughton's adaptation is at its most vital in the quiet moments between Lizzy, the Murray family's maid; Between Esme and her father; Between her boyfriend. It is in these spaces that Laughton explores the complex humanity of these characters, and the play sings. But Laughton's first act bogs down narratively. Every relationship, plot point, and action is spelled out in extreme detail. There are moments here and there where theatricality is allowed to breathe; It reflects the thoughtful methodology required to create a dictionary of this size and quiet meticulousness with which Esme observes her world. And then we turn to more words that explain to us exactly what is happening at each moment. A lamp shines on central table, and upper half Oxlade's set is filled with a projection what was captured there and passed underneath by cast an envelope containing dress scriptorium; An embroidery notifying us that we were in Lizzy's room; Esme is sent brochure from girls' school