After
reading Ben Brantley’s NY Times review http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/theater/review-a-whirlwind-of-delicious-gossip-in-sense-sensibility.html of the new, recently tweaked Off-Broadway production
of Sense & Sensibility now playing
in the Village in NYC, I’m really sorry that I’m not going to be able to see it
during its projected 3 month run—but I still can hope that, with reviews like
his, it could be so successful that the run gets extended long enough for me to
see it later in the year!
From
Brantley’s (very favorable) description, it sounds like Kate Hamill’s adaptation
is radically different from the flood of overly sentimental, superficially faithful,
yet shallowly worshipful and uninsightful, theater adaptations of JA’s novels—especially,
of course, Pride & Prejudice ---which has been widely propagated during
the past decade. Even beyond the perils of popular theatrical pandering, Austen’s
novels are indeed extraordinarily difficult to adapt for the stage—only P&P
has enough dialog already written to not require that a great deal more be
invented for the stage. And, even when tastefully done, a play version of an
Austen novel, taken straight, still is highly unlikely to equal the emotional
jolt of an Andrew Davies film version, which has the advantage of world class
actors and production values sufficient to transport us back two centuries to a
lost world.
While
you should read Brantley’s cogent review in its entirety, I was particularly
struck by vivid this description:
“And
suddenly, they’re all talking at once, wildly and obsessively — to us, to one
another, to themselves. What we’re hearing is a whirlwind of gossip, of voices
bearing conflicting truths and falsehoods about love affairs and scandals,
independent incomes and inherited real estate. Such gossip is the architect of
Austen’s society. And perhaps the most ingenious element of Mr. Tucker’s
production is its use of gossip as the force that shapes the destinies of
Austen’s characters. No matter how private the scene, there are always
eavesdroppers nearby, waiting to spread and reconfigure the latest rumors.”
That
tells me that Hamill has understood just how crucial the sense of
claustrophobic conversation, subject to constant risk of overhearing, is in all
Jane Austen’s novels (and her letters, for that matter). It results in one drawing-room tete-a-tete and
ensemble after another, some of which are subtler versions of the famous scenes
in Much Ado About Nothing, when the
matchmaking pranksters stage performances of “accidental” eavesdropping, in
order to gull Beatrice and Benedick into acknowledging their repressed love for
each other.
And
it does sound as if Hamill has a gift for reverse engineering JA’s novels from their
narrative format focused on the heroine’s point of view back to their
Shakespearean roots, given how deeply JA grasped the Bard’s genius on multiple
levels.
Curiously,
Brantley says not a word about the one character in Sense & Sensibility who, in my subtext-based interpretation of
the shadow story of the novel, is the secret Machiavellian schemer who,
Archimedes-like, uses her wit and audacity to tip the supposed movers and
shakers of the story in the direction she
desires---Lucy Steele. I’d be willing to bet that she gets a chance to
strut her stuff in Hamill’s version, and I sure hope that is the case.
As I
first detected in 2005, and have mentioned and blogged about many times since
then, Jane Austen left a giant clue in ALL CAPS in the text of Sense & Sensibility, which alerts us
to the “true” identity of Lucy – it is the brief letter she writes to Edward
giving her “explanation” for why she suddenly dumped Edward for brother Robert----but
only after first making sure, by her subtle, masterful manipulation of Mrs.
Ferrars, that Robert inherited a vested interest in the Ferrars family
fortune!:
"DEAR
SIR,
"Being
very sure I have long lost your affections, I have thought myself at liberty to
bestow my own on another, and have no doubt of being as happy with him as I
once used to think I might be with you; but I scorn to accept a hand while the
heart was another's. Sincerely wish you happy in your choice, and it shall not
be my fault if we are not always good friends, as our near relationship now
makes proper. I can safely say I owe you no ill-will, and am sure you will be
too generous to do us any ill offices. Your brother has gained my affections
entirely, and as we could not live without one another, we are just returned
from the altar, and are now on our way to Dawlish for a few weeks, which place
your dear brother has great curiosity to see, but thought I would first trouble
you with these few lines, and shall always remain,
"Your
sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,
"LUCY FERRARS.
"LUCY FERRARS.
"I
have burnt all your letters, and will return your picture the first
opportunity. Please to destroy my scrawls—but the ring with my hair you are
very welcome to keep."
Did
you get it? LUCY FERRARS =
LUCYFER! And of course Lucifer would “burn” letters, and write in “scrawls”. And I won’t
even get into the fairy-tale significance of the devil’s hair…… ;)
Brantley,
who does not seem, to me, to be a hardcore Janeite, had no idea how right he
was about S&S when he wrote, “this version captures the vertiginous
apprehensions that lie within a seemingly quiet novel about the rewards of
resignation.” --- it’s really about so much more than that, once you free
yourself from the tyranny of Elinor’s repressed, constricted point of view!
For
more about the diabolically clever Lucy Steele, here are posts in my blog
archive on this topic
unpacking
the large significance of that bit of wordplay….
And
if you want still more, check out Arthur Conan Doyle’s picking up on that
wordplay nearly a century and a half ago:
“LucyFer-rier
in A Study in Scarlet from Lucy-Fer
rars in Sense&Sensibility http://tinyurl.com/kzlq2jc
So,
if anyone reading this has seen, or goes to see, Hamill’s play, I’d love to
hear more about it. Together with the wonderful gift of the brilliance of Whit
Stillman’s adaptation of Lady Susan…. … 2016 is turning into a banner year of
Austen adaptations, and we’re still only a month in…..
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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