Sense and Sensibility
Kate Hamill
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| Emily Ota & Nancy Rodriguez |
The beloved books of Jane Austen have found their way onto
the British and American stages over and again in the past twenty or so
years. Palo Alto’s TheatreWorks Silicon
Valley alone has twice staged Paul Gordon’s Emma,
each time to huge acclaim and record audiences, and is featuring a reading of
his new Pride and Prejudice at their
New Works Festival this August. That
same company offered the American premiere of the British Sense and Sensibility by Roger Parsley and Andy Graham, one of at
least four adapted versions to grace recent American stages (including one as a
musical). Certainly, interest is high to
stage the story of the Dashwood sisters who find themselves lacking many
prospects of marriage after their father dies and his son decides to exclude
his step-mother and step-sisters from the inheritance that only went to him,
the sole male survivor.
This season, Oregon Shakespeare Festival features yet another
adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and
Sensibility, one that premiered Off-Broadway in 2014 by Kate Hamill. While that opening did glean much critical
acclaim – the Huffington Post calling
it “the greatest stage adaptation on this novel in history” – the current, West
Coast premiere at OSF, as directed by Hana S. Sharif, loses much of the angst
and heart of Jane Austen’s original.
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| The Gossips |
Ms. Hamill’s inclusion of a Greek-like chorus of Gossips too
often draws attention away from the Dashwood sisters’ compelling story. Their
upturned-nose, shrill-voiced, and mostly inane comments are mostly of a busy body,
rumor-spreading nature. The device is
funny at first but soon wears its welcome as the play progresses. The ever-present onlookers intervene quite frequently,
sometimes making it difficult to ascertain if they are once again speaking as Gossips
or if they are now playing their primary roles (since each Gossip also plays
one or more of the story’s main characters).
In the late eighteenth century world of Jane Austen’s time –
especially among the more genteel parts of society – finding a husband of fine
family and financial means was the sole path offered a young woman who wanted
to live what others (and probably she) saw as a happy, fulfilling life. But as is still usually true today, money only
begets money. When the Dashwood sisters
are left to fare via the charity of a cousin after being excluded from any of
their father’s vast wealth, their fate for future happiness appears to everyone
– especially the local gossips -- as unsure. The oldest sister, Elinor, already has seen
the prospects of her budding relationship with one Edward Ferrars (Armando
McClain) begin to fade because his mother seems to have no inclination for him
to marry a girl with an old, family name but with no financial fortune.
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| Nancy Rodriguez & Emily Ota |
Nancy Rodriguez, as this oldest sister Elinor, is more
reserved, serious, and tempered in her responses to the changing lots in their
lives than her other, two sisters. More
than once she echoes the play’s title through such statements as, “Sense will
always have an attraction for me.” Her
closest-in-age sister, Marianne, is much more the quick reactor and the mover
and shaker, with Emily Ota providing a forceful portrayal of a headstrong young
woman who is quick to ride emotional waves without much care who sees or hears.
Her Elinor also means to lose no
provided opportunity to ensure both her and her sister’s matrimonial successes. Rounding out the sibling threesome (and much
less central to the story) is a much younger, rambunctious, and often mischievous
Margaret, played with a mixture of brat, cute, and precocious by Samantha
Miller.
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| Nancy Rodriguez, Armando McClain & Emily Ota |
When the family of females moves to the cottage abode
offered by the cousin of Mrs. Dashwood (a mostly restrained and dignified Kate
Mulligan), various men happen into the lives of Elinor and Marianne, with
attractions going both ways but not always immediately as a matched pairing. Kevin Kenerly is a kindly, aging bachelor,
Colonel Brandon, who, when introduced to the family, cannot take his eyes off
Marianne. He tries to make some
conversation in a speech pattern full of short phrases, pauses, and even (some
might say boring) tone’ but Marianne has no interest at all in this man she
likes to mock behind his back. That
leaves Elinor to be the more polite hostess, one who begins to strike up a more
platonic (at least at first) friendship with him.
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| Nancy Rodriguez & Nate Cheeseman |
Impetuous Marianne, against the warning of her cautious
older sister, heads for a walk and gets caught in a rainstorm, only to be
rescued in the arms by a rather dashing gentleman and bachelor, John
Willoughby. Immediately, Marianne falls
for the rather saucy, pleasingly sarcastic Mr. Willoughby (played by Nate
Cheeseman); and from all early indications of his frequent visits and their
walks in the woods (providing great fodder for the gossips), it appears that he
feels the same for her.
But Jane Austen does not let any path to matrimony for
either sister come too easily. Twists
and turns aplenty occur as prior engagements (unknown to the Dashwoods),
histories of spurned relationships, and sudden disappearances just when things
are looking ripe for a proposal all seem to provide dead ends to anything but
possible lives as spinsters.
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| K.T. Vogt with the Sisters |
Through it all, various other relatives and characters enter
the scene to offer advice, comfort, chiding, and/or complications. In this version as scripted by Kate Hamill
and as cast/directed at OSF, more times than not, such persons are exaggerated
to the point of near buffoons. Chief and
best among these is Mrs. Jennings, mother-in-law to Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin and
now-benefactor, Sir John Middleton. K.T.
Vogt is hilarious in multiple ways as the eccentric, excited, and explosive
(especially in loud laughter) Mrs. Jennings.
With hands that fly about almost as wildly as her ever-quick tongue, K.T.
Vogt is the kind of bizarre addition ready to steal the show at any
moment. (She is greatly aided by the
fabulously overly-done-in-every-way attire that costume designer Fabio Toblini
provides her).
Had this OSF version of Sense
and Sensibility only featured Mrs. Jennings as its one eccentric, then the
story of the Dashwood sisters’ dilemmas might have been given more space to
develop an emotional appeal where we as audience really care what happens. However, in this version the story is interrupted
not only by the ongoing blathering by the Gossips, but also by the often
clownish, high-pitched, guffawing mannerisms of a number of other
characters.
Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin Sir John Middleton (Michael J. Hume);
his wife, Lady Middleton (Lauren Modica); and a socially inept Anne Steele
(played also by Lauren Modica) along with even the selfish step-brother John
Dashwood (Brent Hinkley) are all scripted and/or directed to be
caricatures. So many exist that the
heart and soul of Sense and Sensibility
is too often lost amid abrupt, high-octave laughs or by mannerisms that make
fun of their aristocratic come-ons. And
after repeated doses, the intended humor less and less hits its target.
In the end, compared with other stage (and film) versions of
Jane Austen novels that I have seen, Kate Hamill’s Sense and Sensibility -- as currently produced by the venerable
Oregon Shakespeare Festival -- is at best, a so-so outing. I find the comic diversions to be too many
for this particular story, often even causing the pace to seem overly slow and
the flow of action, ponderous. The
saving grace of the production is in the two elder sisters and their three
suitors, but even their excellent performances cannot fully meet the intent of
the original Jane Austen classic.
Rating: 3 E
Sense and Sensibility continues
through October 28, 2018 in
the Angus Bowmer Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Tickets are
available at https://www.osfashland.org/on-stage.
Photos
by Jenny Graham
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