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| Sylvie Davidson as Emma (Adam Smith) |
Emma
Book-It Repertory Theatre
Through January 3, 2016
Books by Jane Austen provide excellent material for Book-It
Repertory Theatre. And subscribers and audiences seem to eat them up, selling
out several performances for adaptations of Persuasion,
Pride and Prejudice, and Rachel Atkins’ romcom adaptation of Emma. Reprising now, after a production
in 2009, the show is reimagined in some lovely ways.
Carol Roscoe, the
director, creates a proscenium picture (last time was kind of in the round) of
a grass-covered summer-time romp. The sun is shining (courtesy lighting
designer Andrew D. Smith) and the
topiary rolls and can be sat on (set design courtesy of Andrea Bryn Bush). All is enhanced with the sumptuous costuming by Jocelyn Fowler, who is becoming a
favorite of mine. The costuming was deceptively simple, but the embellishments
made all the difference.
When you attend, you must listen at all times for the music
provided by Robertson Witmer. His
cheeky sense of humor is embedded in violin renditions of very current popular music! Do you recognize
“Call Me Maybe” or something from Adele? That’s Beyonce’s “Put a Ring on It,”
right? It’s a definite plus to the evening!
The casting is refreshing, diverse in ethnicities and
backgrounds. The use of actors of color in completely unmentioned and
essentially unremarkable ways, with relatives being different skin colors, is
what we can hope theater will become, to the point where we don’t have to ask
about, think about or talk about the inclusion. It’s not there yet, so I
mention it to celebrate it some more. While Austen’s life probably did not
historically intersect with many people of color, there is zero reason to limit
this kind of production in order to comply with history. This is fiction, and
the lessons of the tale are to watch out for what you assume you know about
people, and to keep some room for self-doubt about your judgments.
Emma Woodhouse (Sylvie
Davidson, who delightfully returns to our area to perform in this role once
more) is a headstrong young woman who believes in her own infallibility, a
character flaw that Austen exploits in demonstrating the folly of trying to
manipulate other lives. Emma likes to arrange marriages and fancies herself the
perfect matchmaker, having decided she set her governess up for that current
happy marriage.
Watching with a jaundiced eye is her brother-by-marriage,
Mr. Knightley (Sylvester Foday Kamara),
whose brother married Emma’s older sister. He sees her downfall, though his
advice is unheeded and he is treated as a meddling brother. Emma undertakes a
project with Harriet Smith (an adorable Meme
Garcia), a young woman of uncertain background, deciding she should wed the
local parson, while convincing Harriet not to marry a farmer she is in love
with. Harriet is a biddable sort, to her own detriment.
The play is best when done clearly as a romp. The timing at
opening was a bit too sedate, and the portrayals of the crass characters a bit
too safe. Hopefully, they will all settle in and begin to play with more
abandon, letting the fun fly. Every character has room to expand her or his
range of emotions, and it would be all to the better.
The large cast includes the haughty and self-obsessed Mrs.
Elton (Christine Marie Brown), her
benighted parson (Jaryl Draper), a
reserved and down-at-luck Jane (Sara
Porkalob) that Emma is never quite sure she should like, and Brian Thompson as Emma’s cantankerous
father.
The play’s simple moral propels to a well-known happy ending
and Emma realizes how wrong she has been. Fortunately, all her meddling has
ended up with no one really having to suffer marrying the wrong person. All’s
well that ends well. Oops, that’s a different tale altogether.
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