Miriam Margolyes, who received great acclaim for her portrayal of the nurse in the recent film version of Romeo and Juliet , returns to the Williamstown Stage Festival to perform her one-woman show Dickens’ Women, co-conceived with director Sonia Fraser. Dickens’ Women opens the Other Stage season, June 18-29.

Dickens’ Women was nominated for an Olivier Award in 1992. The true character of Charles Dickens is revealed through a collection of letters, short stories and essays, interwoven with excerpts from his novels, that portray the women in his life and how they translated to the characters in his novels.

According to Margolyes, a great admirer of Dickens’ work, people’s perceptions of the writer are false. “They see him as a man of largesse with family and puddings and all that stuff,” Margoyles said. “But inside he was a tormented creature. He felt all of his life that he was deprived. He felt that women had turned him down, diminished him.”

Margolyes was featured last season at Williamstown in Moliere’s The Learned Ladies. Her films include Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and also James and the Giant Peach. She has acted in West End productions such as The Killing of Sister George and in the original Cloud Nine.

Margolyes admires Dickens’ dedication to his work. “... he took his life with all its sadness, inadequacies and longings and made it into this vast canon of work--and he made it rich and various and exciting and also tragic. It’s what an artists does--transmutes what happens into . . .the work of art.” Co-author and director Sonia Fraser spent two years acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is now focused on writing and directing, and after her stay in Williamstown, she will return to London to adapt a production of The Prince of West End Avenue.

For tickets or more information about Dickens’ Women or The Williamstown Theatre Festival , call (413) 458-3200, or refer to the Williamstown Theatre Festival regional theatre listings.

-- By Blair Glaser