Sat. March 24 

We did not come away from “Oliver Twist” at the American Repertory Theatre’s Loeb Drama Center whistling “Consider Yourself,” that happy-go-lucky tune Jack Wild sang when he played the Artful Dodger in “Oliver!” many years ago. No, we left impressed with the dankness and darkness of the set, the shock of a certain character’s very realistic hanging, the high quality of the acting, and the timelessness of the story. We were also thinking about how well director Neil Bartlett used Gerard McBurney’s music to drolly explain plot, character and mood. Yes, 20-year-old Michael Wartella embodies all that is good about the human spirit, but there’s a lot of evil in the air. A.R.T. vets Karen MacDonald and Remo Airaldi must have had a hoot playing the officious Bumbles, who endure the raising of orphans. One of the best characters is Carson Elrod, a 32-year-old, Kansas-raised actor and NYU graduate who plays both the narrator and the Dodger, and often has to speed-shift between the two. We had a post-show chat.

JSINK:  How difficult is it to switch between the narrator and the Dodger?
ELROD: With a lot of actors, by the time you’ve been acting ten years you’ve done all these roles, from supporting roles to larger roles, and in my first professional play I played five ancillary characters. What’s unique about mine (in “Oliver Twist”) is that I don’t go off stage and come back as the Dodger. The narrator has a soft cut into the Dodger, which makes the audience have to decide which side the narrator’s on. Or is the Dodger the narrator? It asks the question: What’s the agenda of the narrator? I don’t think either are are malevolent. I would say “mischievous benevolence.”. When we read the Dickens novel, which had advantages and disadvantages, you realize the book is 100 percent different from the “Oliver!” musical or the Polanaski film. By the time you get to the end, you can’t believe how many plot lines he ties together! One thing Neil (Bartlett) is true to text is when Fagin (Ned Eisenberg) is in the cell. Dickens lets his own perspective in and it’s similar to my character who can be sarcastic, ironical and biting. Ultimately it is our job to serve Neil Bartlett’s view of the book. It is to a great degree a manifestation of the director’s feelings and desires. My own personal opinion is it’s a dark novel and weird, creepy things happen. One of the things that hits me is when the Dodger brings Oliver back to the (thieves) den, it’s like a crack house with these 12-year-old kids drinking gin, smoking clay pipes and playing cards, as if they were 35-year-old men.

JSINK: So, I’m wondering, is there any method acting involved? Were you a juvenile delinquent?
ELROD: One of my school counselors caught me shop-lifting a pack of gum and that cured me of it. I didn’t have a Dodger-ish existence, but I was fairly punk rock. I liked the Sex Pistols, Sham 69, The Clash, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, I transitioned into Goth, with Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy. But one song that helped us click in was a Who song, “905,” about the anonymity of modern life, about being bred to serve your function and die.
JSINK: How does the play relate to the modern world?
ELROD: There’s no reason in doing plays unless there’s some contemporary metaphor; otherwise, we’re doing musueum pieces. I was reading in the New York Times about New Orelans after Katrina, and kids had returned and reclaimed their status among friends. But they had no jobs, no parental supervision, and had turned into roving gangs, squatting in houses, emerging at night pick-pocketing. The play calls into question the societal infrastructure that allows that to happen.
JSINK: The Dodger and his mates seem to think they’ve got it as good as it gets - in a strange way.
ELROD: The Dodger is Fagin’s protégé and wants to grow up and be Fagin
But in our production, they feel the pain and cold and sleep on floor, shivering. We’re trying to show it’s a pretty brutal life, but it’s all they’ve known.
JSINK: How do you see the chorale singing work?
ELROD: I think the idea is it is done in a music hall fashion. One of the traditional elements were musical breaks. Part of this sounds Brectchian. They sing right before some violence is going to happen - to delay gratification of the event. Or if it’s happened, to make them think about the moment. It’s sung like Greek chorus, Neil did a great job of bringing the Dickensian elemenet in with irony and sarcasm, and punched it up even more.
JSINK: It truly is a great cast.
ELROD: Actors are very different now. There’s been a proliferation of quality actor training programs. More actors I work with around my age have a real spirit of integrity and love for this art. You understand it can’t be about money or job security. I have eight chances a week to go out and try and tell a story in a more powerful way. Theater gives theaudience and the actors a chance to breathe together in the same dark room. For me, it’s never just a job. I try to leave my personal shit at the door. The audience wants to be transported.
JSINK: It seems modern life, with the Web, TV, iPods and the like, leads to more isolation.
ELROD:  The idea of going to the theater is a more engaged activity. We all need communion, a place where we can go and talk to each other, in an artistic vocabulary. Put an artistic metaphor onstage, see it through that prism. Hopefully we see ourselves better.
“Oliver Twist” wraps up with a Saturday March 24 matinee, with a 2 p.m. and an 8 p.m. show. Check website below for details. Tickets: $$76-$29. (Students: $15).

64 Brattle St., Cambridge, 627495-2668  amrep.org