Emma

Play (2022)
by Kate Hamill
Based on the novel by Jane Austen
Directed by Regine Vital
Actors Shakespeare Project
Multicultural Arts Center
Lechmere area, Cambridge, MA
November 14 – December 15, 2024

With Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Emma Woodhouse), Alex Bowden (George Knightley), Liza Giangrande (Harriet Smith), Mara Sidmore (Mrs. Weston, Mrs. Bates), Lorraine Victoria Kanyike (Jane Fairfax, Mrs. Elton), Dev Luthra (Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Weston), Jennie Israel (Miss Bates), Fady Demian (Mr. Elton, Frank Churchill, Robert Martin)

In an English country village in the early nineteenth century, Emma (Josephine Mishiri Elwood) is a headstrong and energetic woman of twenty who decides to take on the case of nineteen year old Harriet Smith (Liza Giangrande) whose social life, in Emma’s view, needs repair. Only settling on Robert Martin, a young farmer, as her romantic fixation, Harriet appears to Emma as hopelessly fated. Emma embarks on trying to set up Harriet with a series of more suitable suitors, including Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill (both played by Fady Demian). Meanwhile, Emma is challenged by George Knightley (Alex Bowden), a twenty-five year old friend whom Emma seems to regard as hopelessly starchy and not at all with it. Through a series of interchanges and maneuvers, even Knightley gets tangled up in Harriet’s romantic agenda as choreographed by Emma. Lurking in the background, seemingly obvious to all except herself, is Emma’s attachment to Knightley which she only comes to realize after her many projected plans for Harriet have fallen through. Knightley, more generally aware of his attractions to Emma, has to suffer through her various apparent rejections of him. In the midst of all of this, Mrs. Weston (Mara Sidmore), Emma’s former governess and now older friend, holds forth on the severe constraints and limits upon woman’s life in the world Emma inhabits. Eventually, however, as usually happens in romantic comedies, things work out for all.

The 1815 Jane Austen novel Emma, on which this play is based, is a great one – a nuanced and long psychological study that traces past the superficiality of its protagonist’s outlook through an involved sequence of serious self-reflections that yield a true sense of maturation. The novel, like George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872) and set in the early 1830s, falls into that distinctive range of literary works which really put the reader into the skin of its characters. In Emma, one finds oneself almost exclusively within Emma’s skin, and the trajectory of empathy and appreciation for the birth-pangs of the character’s psychological evolution become vivid and personal.

It is difficult to represent this kind of psychological evolution in a dramatic form outside of the novel, but a couple of film adaptations which have attempted it have done a pretty good job. Emma (1996), starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma and with Jeremy Northam as Knightley, does a very nice job of representing the basic drama and giving the gist of the psychological terrain to be crossed, though it does so clearly in a more abbreviated way that does the novel. Clueless (1995) stars Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz the Emma character, with Paul Rudd (in his film debut!) as Josh Lucas the Knightley character. Set in Beverly Hills in the later twentieth century rather than in rural England in the early nineteenth century, its context is contemporary and quite different, but the psychological impact is similar. So when Cher comes to her fundamental realizations at the end, it makes sense and succeeds within the contemporary context. Both film attempts do quite well in managing the overall tone of the novel and nurturing its potent denouement in persuasive, though differently contextualized, ways.

The play by Kate Hamill currently in production by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, conveys some of these aspects quite nicely. Especially at the outset of the play, the dignified and restrained tension between Emma and Knightley is beautifully presented. Elwood’s Emma conveys a potent intelligence and wit just on the edge of bursting out, and Bowden’s Knightly is elevated, discreet and thoughtful. Period music surrounds the scene and though there is a bit of denim in the garb, the general sense is in keeping with the containment and reserve that form the boundaries of the world in which Emma’s ambitions blossom and in which her and Knightley’s passions simmer. Weighing in to shape this world are the appropriately tuned ministrations of Miss Bates (Jennie Israel) and the ardently interested but contained attentions of Mrs. Weston (Mara Sidmore). And, of course, Harriet Smith (Liza Giangrande) offers an ingenue’s innocence that paves the way for Emma’s manipulations.

As the plot develops, however, things get a little hairier in this play and in the current production. Constraint falls by the wayside as a variety of outbursts color the landscape and wilder movements begin to prevail especially in the choreography. The various paramours – Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill (both represented by Fady Demian) and Jane Fairfax (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike) – add to the mix and generally cause a considerable range of explosions on a number of fronts. Much of the action becomes kinetic and much of it happens all at once onstage, with the cumulative effect a rambunctiousness that sometimes mutes the subtleties of the inner action. This kineticism, with sometimes omnipresent action all taking place within the cavernous and not particularly sound-friendly space of the Multicultural Arts Center, frequently makes things difficult to hear. One certainly gets the general idea of what’s going on, but the dignified restraint of the opening scenes in which the interchanges are clear and apparent gives way to a melange that buries many of the details.

The play and this production are clearly intended to make it more contemporary than the original. The wilder dance moves, the sometimes contemporary garb, the rock and roll and with removal of the fourth wall through occasional references to the context of the production itself all contribute. Certainly author Hamill is intent, particularly through the very didactic pronouncement by Mrs. Weston in Act II, to make a feminist statement with a distinctively contemporary tone. Yet, somewhat oddly, this feminist critique is purely contained in that brief speech and has no implications for the trajectory of the narrative itself. Hamill chooses to end the play just as the novel ends, with a romantic denouement without alteration. Despite Hamill’s intent to be contemporary, that lone and ardent speech by Mrs. Weston seems a little slim, on its own, and without dramatic destination. Were the play a bit more daring in altering its context – as Clueless is – or in adjusting the trajectory of the romance between Emma and Knightley, it might be more consistent with Hamill’s concerns to create a play with a contemporary twist.

As Emma, Elwood does a fine job, conveying with adept and nuanced facial and physical gestures a great deal about the character’s strength, insight and humor. She’s definitely fun to watch and her moves are varied and eloquent. Bowden’s Knightley, particularly in the more dignified and restrained contexts, has real grandeur and it’s a pleasure to experience the two of them in these moments. When Bowden’s Knightley is more agitated and hysterical, as happens from time to time, it’s less compelling. But I was indeed moved by the fully anticipated denouement between Knightley and Emma, certainly a result of having been drawn in by these portrayals.

In the other supporting roles, Dev Luthra as Mr. Weston and Mr. Woodhouse, Lorraine Victoria Kanyke as Jane Fairfax, Mara Sidmore as Mrs. Weston, Jennie Israel and Miss Bates, and Fady Demian as the romantic prospects, added nicely, along with Liza Giangande’s more prevalent and energetic performance as Harriet Smith.

It’s curious that the ASP is now programming so much that is not Shakespeare. When Benjamin Evett started the company twenty years ago it thrived on doing all of Shakespeare’s plays and it did them eloquently and with a high degree of attention to acting and direction. That general disposition continued after Evett’s departure and Allyn Burrows’ tenure starting in 2010. Now, a part of the company’s time is spent with Shakespeare but is also directed significantly to more contemporary works. It’s a curious turn, but leaves something of a hole in that space in Boston that was consistently filled a bit more fully with this company’s adept and compelling productions of Shakespeare for so many years.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)