Sydney Theatre Company’s The Dictionary of Lost Words returns to the Roslyn Packer Theatre after sold-out seasons around Australia. A co-production with State Theatre Company South Australia, this production shows the benefits of all those performances. Under Jessica Arthur’s assured direction, it is a smooth, seamlessly moving piece of theatre.
Taking inspiration from the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary by a devoted group of lexicographers in a London backyard shed (lovingly named the Scriptorium), Pip Williams’ world-famous novel is faithfully rendered by playwright Verity Laughton. Compiling the dictionary was a painstakingly monumental task taking decades, but it was attacked with an enthusiasm that is infectiously and comically realised on stage.
The fictional Esme (Shannen Alyce Quan), daughter of Harry Nicoll (Johnny Nasser), is the inquiring and determined narrative focus of the play. She secretes herself away under the lexicographers’ worktables, catching discarded ‘slips’ of collected words. Esme soon realises the gendered nature of the dictionary and begins compiling her own collection of ‘lost words’ with an empathy and wary intelligence that disregards class boundaries. She listens to people.
Her first found word, threaded through the play like a ribbon through wool, is ‘bondmaid’ (an unwaged servant.) Over the course of the play, this word is repossessed and repurposed, highlighting Dictionary’s contention that language is malleable and words have power. Esme’s innate gift is to dignify others by acknowledging their presence through listening and recording their names. In doing so, she willingly becomes a servant to the reclamation of lost voices.
Esme’s insatiable curiosity leads her to the world of theatre and through that to the nascent Suffragette movement. The Suffragette connection disappears as events tumble into each other, tangling up in the outbreak of war. But it is thematically reconnected by a coda set in 1989 where Esme’s daughter, Alice (Ksenja Logos), has realised her potential created by previous generations of women asserting their voice.
This is a production that revels in the rich breadth of language. So many words…to the point where quite a bit of expository dialogue, noticeably in the first half, threatens some dramatic momentum. It’s revealing, too, and poignant, that one of the most tender moments comes where a brief exchange is all that is required to convey tragic news. The script doesn’t hide from the irony that, sometimes, words just fail.
The production team clearly relishes the chance to recreate an analogue past. Designer Jonathon Oxlade’s set is dominated by an extraordinary bookshelf, its cells housing all sorts of ephemera, complete with steps, that stretch the length of the stage. Centre stage is a collection of worktables where the lexicographers (and later, compositors) work. Filling the vertical space above the bookcase are large screens.
Sydney Theatre Company loves its technology and uses CCTV manipulated by cast members from the worktables to project images of letters, addresses, markers of time, and scene changes onto the overhead screens. For all the world, it resembles an old-school overhead projector, in keeping with the ethos. Clever and effective.
Lighting by Trent Suidgeest, who designed the fabulous effects for Picnic at Hanging Rock, is again brilliantly conceived. Selectively illuminating cell sections of the bookcase suggest mood and signal transitions, while downstage lighting pins the action in sharp relief.
Ailsa Paterson’s costuming unmistakably evokes a general sense of late Victorian and Edwardian England. Characters are clearly differentiated, and Esme is dressed beautifully in distinctively symbolic green.
Most of the actors play multiple roles and the acting is uniformly excellent. Quan must deliver a lot of dialogue and sustain the audience’s belief as Esme transitions from a precocious four-year-old girl, through head-strong teen to adulthood. She does so with abundant skill, charm and grace.
As Bill Taylor (and also playing Frederick Sweatman), James Smith gives every impression, in posture and speech, of actually being a cockney from 100+ years ago. Logos, in another of her roles as former prostitute Mabel, displays razor-sharp comic timing, revelling in an outrageously funny all-female discussion of the etymology of…well, a word intimately connected to the female body. The idea of women owning a word so frequently weaponised by men cleverly underscores how the gendered nature of language can be subverted.
In the end, it is all about the words. The play celebrates the power of words to create worlds to define and segregate. But also, to love and have moral purpose. The Dictionary of Lost Words is funny and sweet, and you care for the characters – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Dictionary of Lost Words runs until 22 March at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, 22 Hickson Road Walsh Bay 2000.
It then embarks on a national tour (see dates below).
Tickets: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2025/the-dictionary-of-lost-words-2025
Website: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/sydneytheatreco/
Photo credits: Prudence Upton
The Dictionary of Lost Words national tour dates:
Geelong March 27 to March 29 – The Play House, Geelong Arts Centre
Adelaide April 3 to April 17 – Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Brisbane April 26 to May 10 – Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
Canberra May 15 to May 24 – Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Wollongong May 29 to June 7 – Merrigong Theatre Company, Wollongong
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