REVIEW: Sparks fly as love takes center stage in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s refreshing ‘Emma’
“Love has its own agenda after all.”
This may not be a direct quote from Jane Austen, but Emma’s remark certainly encapsulates the essence of love and timing as Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Kate Hamill’s delightfully interactive romantic comedy Emma based on Jane Austen’s classic novel live and in person at the elegant Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts through December 15. Directed insightfully by Regine Vital, Emma runs approximately two hours and twenty-five minutes including one intermission. Click here for more information and for tickets.
Love is not just in the air in this inviting Emma, but this immersive experience includes the cast often addressing the audience and presents a sweet purpose for the noisemakers that are distributed to the audience with tea offered at intermission in case you are not already charmed by Austen’s style.
The sophisticated Multicultural Arts Center which includes a marvelous wrap around balcony, marble floors and finely-detailed staircase is an ideal location for the garden parties, tea and affluence taking place in the English countryside prevalent in this production and enhances Saskia Martinez’s lovely set design which includes multicolor sashes, mini models of mansions and sparkling brass chandeliers. Whether it is in the vine climbing wrought-iron stadium seating or at the decorated tables on the floor, the show does not offer a bad seat in the house. However, the more fortunate attendees are at the decorated tables on the floor immersed in the play front and center of the action.
Costume designer Nia Safarr Banks infuses colorful attire from the Regency era blending vintage and contemporary costumes ranging from watercolor to floral empire waist gowns with bows, Spencer jackets, corduroy coats, pearls, lace, crinoline and top hats as well as baseball caps and glittering denim. Anna Drummond’s intriguing sound design also mixes classical with contemporary music featuring uplifting club songs between scenes and subtle instrumental versions of love songs from pop artists such as Taylor Swift and Cyndi Lauper.
Jane Austen’s Emma has been restaged, restyled and recalibrated many times over the years for television, theatre and film. It became an age of Austen in the mid 90s after Sense and Sensibility hit the big screen in 1995 followed by Clueless, considered a modern retelling of Emma starring Alicia Silverstone, which hit the big screen in 1996 while a traditional Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow also premiered that same year. More recently, a streaming adaptation of Emma premiered on Amazon Prime starring Anya Taylor-Joy to some critical acclaim in 2020.
In most adaptations, beautiful Emma leads a spoiled and privileged life and mostly gets whatever she wants, but she was also seemingly well meaning in her confidence that she knows what is best for everyone in her life. In Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Emma, having matched Mr. and Mrs. Weston by way of introduction, Josephine Moshiri Elwood as Emma is more self assured than ever that she knows what is best and intends to work her magic on her newest project Harriet, portrayed with wide eyed naiveté, excitability and awkward charm by Liza Giangrande, who she thinks has been misled in the ways of love and status.
Elwood’s Emma is pricklier, sharper, more outspoken, snobby, and dramatic, making no apologies as she exclaims “onward and upward.” With a conspiratorial laugh, she is tempestuous and controlling and much more antihero than heroine. This Emma needs to be better understood than needs to change which is a fun part to play and Elwood revels in it. She boasts fiery chemistry with Alex Bowden as George who is also a man of means and seems a bit more reasonable, but they match each other in stubbornness. Elwood also shares some fascinating scenes with Lorraine Victoria Kanyike who shines as refined and humble Jane as does Bowden who shares a comic rivalry with Fady Damian as enigmatic Frank Churchill.
Most of this talented cast depicts dual roles and the entire cast display a great deal of compelling physical and self aware humor, especially between Elwood and Giangrande as well as Kanyike and Damian. Romantic, endearing, spicy and wonderfully entertaining, Hamill leaves room for more than one transformation in this production and it is refreshing to see how she infuses some contemporary ideas about society into each of these classic characters while still maintaining this classic tale of the Austen you know and love.
Matchmaking, mixed signals, love triangles and more than a few surprises take center stage as Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Kate Hamill’s delightfully interactive romantic comedy Emma based on Jane Austen’s classic novel live and in person at the elegant Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts through December 15. Click here for more information and for tickets.
