LITTLE PATIENCE FOR LITTLE WOMEN

Girls interrupted, potential unrealized

Actors’ Shakespeare Project is an esteemed local theater company here in Greater Boston and frankly one of my favorites. Kate Hamill, one of the most produced living playwrights in the United States, is also one of my favorite playwrights. Not everyone loves the way she applies a sardonic feminist lens to classic literature, but I do. Actors’ Shakespeare’s production of Hamill’s Emma last season was a huge success with me.

Aislinn Brophy, Kaila Pelton-Flavin, Olivia Fenton, and Chloe McFarlaneKaila Pelton-Flavin and Patrick Vincent Curran (embracing center)
with Olivia Fenton, Chris Stahl, and Sarah Newhouse

Therefore, I approached the current production of Little Women with high, but not unrealistic, hopes. Transferring a beloved classic of American literature that has transcended its original intended audience of children to live performance is a real challenge. But despite Jenna McFarland Lord‘s excellent scenic design, that allows smooth movement between multiple stories and houses, and Deb Sullivan‘s effective lighting, the production feels noisy and unfocused. The fault likely lies with Hamill’s effort to wring comedy and pointed social commentary out of a work that already possesses those qualities, as well as her decision to try to incorporate too much story into the limitations of a two-hour-and-twenty-minute stage production.

Aislinn Brophy, Kaila Pelton-Flavin, and Olivia FentonAislinn Brophy

I have a great tolerance for what some consider “over-acting.” Generally, I want to see actors lean into their roles and give it all they’ve got. But Aislinn Brophy, and to a lesser extent Chloe McFarlane, breached my tolerance level in their depictions of writer Jo, Alcott’s alter ego, and youngest sister Amy, the aspiring artist. It’s difficult to discern with whom the fault lies: Brophy and McFarlane; director Shana Gozansky; or possibly with Hamill herself.

Sarah Newhouse, Aislinn Brophy, and Kaila Pelton-FlavinChris Stahl, Amy Griffin, and Olivia Fenton

Many, including myself, come to a Hamill play looking for comedy as well as sharply pointed social commentary. Trying to coax more spirit out of the already-spirited characters Jo and Amy through comic exaggeration simply doesn’t work. Neither does attempting to turn good-hearted yet traditionally feminine Meg (Olivia Fenton) nor sickly yet quietly generous Beth (Kaila Pelton-Flavin) into patiently dull foils for the spirited Jo and Amy.

Kaila Pelton-Flavin, Olivia Fenton, Sarah Newhouse, Aislinn Brophy, Chloe McFarlaneAislinn Brophy, Chloe McFarlane, Sarah Newhouse, Kaila Pelton-Flavin, Olivia Fenton

Sarah Newhouse is an on-the-nose paragon of virtues as Marmee, aiding suffering immigrant families and encouraging her daughters to develop a social conscience. In her other role, Aunt March, she’s a cartoon-version of selfish intolerance. Either way, the roles are two-dimensional and unsatisfying.

Aislinn Brophy and Sarah NewhousePatrick Vincent Curran and Kaila Pelton-Flavin

The play took on more potential in the scene in which tomboy Jo and her dear pal, the sensitive boy-next-door Theodore “Laurie” Laurence (Jonah Barricklo), discuss the limitations of their gender identities. Perhaps a bolder Hamill would have taken this discussion a step further and allowed the characters to shift genders or otherwise violate the gender binary. As it is, the conversations, like the play itself, really go nowhere.

Aislinn Brophy and Jonah Barricklo

Having said all this, I have to acknowledge that the person who was my companion for this production is an avid fan of Little Women. She has read the novel and its sequels multiple times and has seen numerous interpretations of the work. While she was dissatisfied with some elements of the production, overall she was moved to tears, declared the characterization of Beth the best she had ever seen, and has been inspired since seeing it to think again about the complexities of characterization and relationships in Alcott’s classic work. All of which only confirms that the experience of theater—or any other artistic endeavor—is subjective, and like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

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photos by Benjamin Rose Photography

Little Women
Actors’ Shakespeare Project
Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St. in Watertown
ends on March 1, 2026
for tickets ($20-$74), call 617.933.8600 or visit Actors Shakespeare Project

for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston

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BIO: Lynne Weiss is a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association. Her work has also appeared in Literary Ladies Guide and in The Common, Black Warrior Review, and the Ploughshares Blog. She has an MFA from UMass Amherst and has received residencies from Yaddo, the Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. A lifelong social justice activist, she is at work on a novel set in 1930s Cornwall. Her reviews, travel tales, and progressively optimistic opinions are on her substack.