While Bob Miller has been performing on the Wagon Wheel Theatre stage for 21 years, Parker Irwin is just getting his professional debut with the theater's production of the musical “Oliver!” Irwin, 9, from Fort Wayne, plays the title role in the show, which runs weekends from Friday to December 16. Miller, who is about to turn 50, plays Fagin, the villain from the Charles Dickens book “Oliver Twist” that the musical is based on. “My character is kind of curious, so when I meet Fagin, they’re teaching me to do everything,” said Irwin during an interview Monday afternoon. “Fagin is kind of an evil Peter Pan in a way because he never grows up. He leads the Lost Boys ... these are the kids that fall through the cracks. Oliver being the title character, it’s all about him,” Miller said. “He’s the poor little waif caught up in the terrors of the Industrial Revolution. Fagin takes him in as one of his kids and teaches them to be good thieves. Fagin is the one character out of all the adults he meets on the low end of the scale, that I kind of think, other than Nancy, has some redeeming qualities. He does genuinely like the kids, but he’s got his own ulterior motives as well.” Fagin trains Oliver to be a good little thief, Miller said. When Oliver lucks into his true heritage, Fagin gets upset. Asked how different the musical is from Dickens’ original work, Miller said, “You know, I’m ashamed to say this, I’m like Mr. Theatre Historian ... with Dickens being one of my favorite authors, I have to say ‘Oliver’ is the one Dickens novel, I’ve never read the true Dickens novel. I’ve read abridged novels. It goes very close to what I understand, but it isn’t like we’re talking about ‘A Christmas Carol,’ which I know inside-out and backwards. But I believe it’s fairly close. There’s a few liberties taken, but it’s close.” The musical is about 1 hour and 50 minutes long, Miller estimated, so not all of the book obviously made it into the musical. Miller told Irwin, “You (as Oliver) go through so much. You start in the orphanage, then you’re working with the undertaker, then with me. You fall in with the high society crowd. It’s his trip through London in this time period.” Letting his inner historian come through, Miller said, “The musical, I was a year old, this was made in 1964. It was a film musical. It’s one of those rare instances where it was a film musical before the play. The musical is taken from the film musical. Usually, it’s the other way around, but this one ... that’s what happened. The biggest name I think people would know, he’s gone now, is Oliver Reed, who played Bill Sikes, the villain. Oscar winner and all that. I remember it as a kid. It scared me.” Irwin, in describing what the music of the production is like, said, “There’s some moments where you can be like, oh well, I didn’t see that coming. When Bill Sikes gets really mad or when Fagin gets really mad, the music will speed up or slow down instead of what you think would happen.” The musical has some songs in it everyone would know, Miller said, three of which Irwin gets to sing as Oliver. Irwin named “Where Is Love?” as one that people would know. “There’s a lot of songs in this that I think, everyone grew up hearing these songs,” Miller said. “So they’re going to know a lot of the music.” Some might wonder why “Oliver!” would be a Christmas-time show as it never really discusses the holiday. “But, it does have a good Christmas message of hope and unity,” Miller said. “Oliver, being a total innocent, and he is an innocent in the show ... as an innocent, he tends to find or make family wherever he goes, good or bad. And that’s a good Christmas message to me: Wherever you go, there can be some form of family. Some of these families are not so good, but it does show innocence rewarded. So, take that with a grain of salt. I think it does have sort of a neat message to think about at Christmas.” Overall, Miller agreed that the theme of the show is charity. “I think that’s the theme overall with a lot of Dickens’ work when you think about it,” Miller said. “Dickens was very much like Mark Twain. A large part of Mark Twain’s work in the U.S. was about our problems in society, mainly slavery, and the uneducated. Dickens was very big on all human beings have worth, and I think that’s a big point of ‘Oliver!’ He’s in this society of, the orphanage, these kids are just treated terribly, they’re sold off, when they act up, they’re sold off for profit. They’re not treated decently. Dickens was very big about how that is wrong, this is not how people need to treat one another. So I do think it has a good underlying message.” Irwin said he definitely sees how Oliver changes over the course of the show. “When I first meet Fagin, I like living with him, but when I ... go to the Brownlow’s house, and then Fagin kidnaps me, I don’t like them anymore because I liked where I was living at,” Irwin said. “That’s where I wanted to be.” Irwin is one of about 27 kids in the show. Miller said he’s worked with a lot of kids before, but this show may have the largest number of kids he’s performed with. Last year, in the theater’s production of the musical version of “Miracle on 34th Street,” in which Miller played Kris Kringle, Miller said there were a lot of kids in that show, too, just maybe not as many. “It’s fun. I try not to scare them. There’s this age gap. I come in and I’m this old big guy. They get used to me,” Miller said. Irwin said he’s learning a lot from Miller. “Really, to be yourself and everyone will like you,” he said. Miller said Irwin doesn’t need any tips for the stage from him. “He’s a natural,” Miller said.For the complete interview, visit the Times-Union website at www.timesuniononline.com and check out the free videos. Tickets for “Oliver!” are $13 for children, $17 for students, $23 for seniors (matinee only) and $31 for adults. Tickets to “Oliver!” are on sale now by calling the box office or by visiting the website at wagonwheeltheatre.org For more information, call 574-267-8041.
