Sense and Sensibility at ISF

Or: Irreverence Done Right

Adaptation, particularly of a well loved and intimately known work, is a tightrope. A playwright cannot chisel out the work verbatim as holy text, nor can they turn it completely inside out and wear it as a ridiculous hat. Do either the play will plunge into the depths of either tedium or ridicule, or tedious ridicule. But it is not a concern that Kate Hamill runs a risk of. Her adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, under the co-direction of Sara Bruner and Jaclyn Miller. sprints across the wire and does a couple cartwheels while its at it.

Hamill’s script is not a “Cut and paste” of the original novel, as she says in her program note, but it serves the best observations, barbs, and breakdowns of the original novel while serving an irrelevant, high energy comedy that highlights what should stand out to the modern audience while also keeping her additions in the voice and style of the original, WHILE ALSO clarifying motivations of character and society in ways that run with the grain of the story and do not branch against it.

One of the above said creations is the Chorus of Gossips, an ensemble attired in wallpaper who harass and harry our leading sisters Elinor (Maggie Kettering) and Marianne (Ángela Utrera), providing both exposition, urgency, and an example of the faceless villainy that hounds woman in Austen’s time and ours until they either conform to their spot or disappear.

The Wallpaper people try their damndest, but our heroines are indomitable. Utrera bursts around the stage like a firework, leaping into the air and throwing herself onto couches, neither a busted ankle or a broken heart can slow her determination to run mad as often as she chooses (but never faint). Kettering’s Elinor is less airborne but still magnetic in her performance. In a production of clever-clever slights and general boisterousness, Kettering takes Elinor’s reticence and still gives her a comedic edge, while being perfectly earnest (I don’t know when I’ve seen a proffered handshake freighted with so much consequence). When her emotional cup runneth over and the wrack of her Elinor’s unhappiness leaks through her statue Kettering transcends the line between “Look at that actor cry, they’re very good,” to the miracle when the whole audience blinks back tears for the pain of a dear dear friend.

Our heroes are matched by their respective counterparts, the wall paper people jumping into other rolls. Joe Wegner does an admirable job as Edward Ferris (a particularly tricky love interest and a hard needle to thread), his affability being never spineless and his flights of nerves endearing, before cutting loose as high octane gossip Mrs. Jennings, who cavorts with an Irish(??) accent and a license to flop. Nick Steen as Col. Brandon plays to his traditional and respected roll, of the straight-backed and noble of heart. But for one scene he brings comes on as Robert Ferris, Edwards brother, and apparently deputy secretary to the Ministry of Silly Walks. Steen’s performance as this small but pivotal character did not just steal the show, he robbed the entire audience at tooth-point and left us with previous bodily harm due to how hard we were laughing. It was truly a delight to see two known actors who have played so well in their types (Clown Adept and Lord Quijada, respectively) and watch them shake out their wings and dive cormorant like into new rolls.

Another incredible turn, whose performance would carry the play alone (if it weren’t set among so many leading lights), is Laura Welsh Berg as Willoughby. Welsh Berg also plays to her familiar strengths as Fanny the evil step-sister-in-law, but as the rakish Willoughby she teases out a performance of such sincerity and nuance. Everything is thought out about him from the way he twirls his hat to how he sits when the fight has gone out of him, neither his charm or his villainy is exaggerated, and the whole arc of his character is bare to us, totally understandable, even sympathetic, but still well beyond any light of forgiveness. The scene where Willoughby and Elinor finally cross swords, is double faceted monument to the actor’s skill, Kate Hamill’s adaptational prowess, and Jane Austen’s ability to sketch characters so deeply from so few strokes.

The staging of the show ranges from the charmingly inventive (bouncing around on rolling settles for carriage rides, the company dancing with empty coats for the great ball) to incomprehensible (Marianne’s famous don’t-text-your-ex parable Storm, a swirl of black-lighted “willow boughs” (get it?) that apparently infect her with sickness, but lack coherence. Still, the adaptation, the acting, and the staging all came together for an irreverent but not dismissive adaptation of a grand and soulful story. It’s good to see that Austen is alive and well and her prism can be turned to refract the light of our modern age, so long as it its turned in such talented hands as these.