A TIME-TRAVELING JANE AUSTEN
What if Jane Austen had managed to read The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking 1963 exploration of why well-educated and prosperous women were so unhappy in their roles as homemakers and mothers? Obviously, it would have been impossible for Austen (1775–1817) to do such a thing, so playwright Kate Hamill has done it for us in her sweetly hilarious adaptation of Austen’s Emma, the story of the girl who has it all — education, brains, beauty, and money — and she’s bored out of her mind. Directed by Regine Vital, this Actors Shakespeare Project production dials Austen’s Regency atmosphere of tea parties and balls up several notches to move beyond simply blaming Emma Woodhouse for her tendency to meddle into the affairs of others. Hamill’s insightful script shifts the focus to the society in which Emma lives — a society that has allowed her a superior education and all the advantages of her wealth but no opportunity or occupation in which to use them.
Liza Giangrande and Jennie Israel
Josephine Moshiri Elwood positively embodies Emma, the a young woman who imagines herself the cleverest woman in the neighborhood (and beyond) and likes nothing better than to hear others reflect her view of herself. But what to do with all her brain power? Too wealthy to become a governess or a teacher, Emma has nothing to do except devote herself to matchmaking, and specifically matchmaking on behalf of her new friend, the pretty, impressionable, and eager to please Harriet Smith (Liza Giangrande). Emma talks Harriet into spurning hard-working groundskeeper Robert Martin (Fady Demian; triple-cast as Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill) to pursue a romance with Mr. Elton, the rector. Elton does not appeal to Harriet, but Emma insists that such a match would give Harriet greater social status.
Josephine Moshiri Elwood and Mara Sidmore
Alex Bowden is appealing as decent yet equally deluded George Knightley, Emma’s childhood friend and present-day sparring partner. He warns Emma repeatedly against her meddling yet can’t seem to look away from her and her exploits, much as they trouble him. It’s clear that George and Emma are obsessed with each other and belong together. Much of the energy of the play comes from wanting to see how they will manage to recognize the inexorable power of their mutual attraction and then get over their own stubbornness long enough to admit it.
Dev Luthra and Mara Sidmore
Emma’s great rival, Jane Fairfax (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, double-cast as the libidinous Mrs. Elton) simmers with mystery and resentment until the moment of her big reveal; the wise and increasingly pregnant Mrs. Weston (Mira Sidmore), Emma’s former governess and tutor, must intervene to get the squabbling would-be lovers over the hump. Both Emma and Harriet are often overcome with ecstasies of hysteria that keep us laughing at their pitches of heightened emotion, so at odds with what we tend to assume was the restrained atmosphere of an early-19th-century manor house.
Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, Fady Demian, Josephine Elwood, and Liza Giangrande
Hamill’s script breaks the fourth wall in numerous ways: At times, a frustrated Emma shouts at the audience for failing to warn her of her own errors; at other times, Emma informs us of ways in which the script adds or subtracts from the novel. I loved the TV series-style recap that greeted us following intermission. Taavon Gamble’s choreography gives the show pizzazz, and Nia Safarr Banks’s costumes carry us efficiently from ball to berry-picking to wedding with a minimum of fuss. Scenic designer Saskia Martinez uses to advantage the elegantly intimate space of the Multicultural Arts Center (a popular venue for wedding receptions), employing the rich décor of the embellished ceiling and green wrought iron rails to create an atmosphere appropriate to Austen’s novel. Cabaret-style seating featuring teapots and flowers puts some patrons right on the stage, giving the actors additional opportunities to bring unsuspecting but generally bemused spectators into the fun.
Lorraine Victoria Kanyike with the cast
While Friedan’s focus on middle-class straight and predominantly white women faced criticism from within the feminist movement that her book is credited with birthing, we can only go so far in our time travels with Emma Woodhouse. By the end of the play, she does begin to challenge not only the ways in which she has been robbed of opportunities but also the ways in which she can begin to use her economic privilege to support other women.
Such efforts are worthy of the joyous outburst of dance that brings the cast onto the stage for their final bows.
photos by Nile Scott Studios
Emma
Actors Shakespeare Project
Multicultural Arts Center, 41 Second St. in East Cambridge MA
ends on December 15, 2024
for tickets ($20-$64), visit Actors Shakespeare Project
