Sense & Sensibility

Improving on a well-written classic is a goal often missed in theatre, and improving on it while remaining faithful to its author’s writing and intent means aiming high indeed.  How do you infuse a well-known work with surprise or even freshness without adding to or altering what the author wished to communicate?

Kate Hamill’s stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility achieves a perfect balance of both fidelity and originality, adding spice and salt to a play already tangy with almost unstated ironic social commentary, and does so with flair by using additional bit characters to represent an important feature of the play: gossip.

State Theatre Company South Australia has taken this remarkable play and made it even funnier and more poignant through creative stage direction in seamless coordination with beautiful set design, gorgeous lighting, imaginative period costuming, and careful use of props, creating an entire stratum of artifice that — though she couldn’t have envisaged it — Austen would have applauded.  And that is to say nothing of the consistent surprises in the way the cast undertook scene changes, every one a delight in itself.

This production of a beautifully modelled adaptation of a cleverly crafted work of extended serious wit does Hamill and Austen proud.  Its serious themes work right alongside a lovely whimsicality to leave you plenty to talk and chuckle over later.  Don’t miss it.

John P. Harvey

Image: [L–R] Caroline Mignone, Anna Steen, Miranda Daughtry, and Rachel Burke, in Sense & Sensibility.  Photographer: David James McCarthy.