JANE AUSTEN IS A SEASONAL TRADITION AT SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY
By Laura Mars
Holiday 24
SINCE 1978, Lenox-based Shakespeare & Company has focused on The Bard, reminding us with every performance that history—particularly stories about love, hate, ambition, and jealousy—most certainly repeats itself. In 2017, the magic of Jane Austen was added to its holiday season. Despite being written 200 years after Shakespeare, Austen’s novels remind us again that classics never die; they just get more relevant. This year, it’s Austen’s Emma, adapted for the stage by remarkable playwright Kate Hamill, who is known for her innovative, contemporary stage adaptations of classic novels. She was named “Playwright of the Year” by the Wall Street Journal in 2017 and was the most-produced playwright every year from 2017 to 2023. Emma (1815) is not Hamill’s first Austen work. She’s also adapted Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813)—and hinted that Lady Susan (written in 1794 and published in 1871) may be next. Her other adaptations include the works of classic writers William Thackeray, Louisa May Alcott, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Homer, not to mention her new plays and work as an actor.
“As a feminist playwright, I’m invested in female characters who are not always likeable,” says Hamill. “Emma is a ‘problem’ character, a smart, capable young woman from privilege, with a ton of potential who is not allowed to channel that energy productively, a sheep dog without any sheep. Seeing Emma put her energy very intensely in the wrong place reminds me of a screwball comedy, and that’s how I wrote this play, using Lucy in I Love Lucy and Dolly in Hello Dolly! as my primary inspirations.”
The greatly anticipated Emma: A Lively Costumed Reading is set to appear at Shakespeare & Company from Friday to Sunday, December 13 to 15. It was intended to be presented live in the winter of 2020 after a world premiere at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, but Covid intervened and neither performance happened. Instead, Shakespeare & Company produced the show on Zoom—actors in full costume working from separate locations in the Elayne P. Bernstein Production Center, as well as one actor’s living room, the fate of many live performances at the time.
Historically, Shakespeare & Company’s theaters have been dark during the winter season. From 2010 to 2013, they presented David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries, followed by It’s a Wonderful Life, A Radio Show for a few years after that. But for various reasons, they were looking for something new, says Shakespeare & Company Producing Associate and Director, Ariel Bock. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was not an option; Berkshire Theatre Group had been staging the classic annually since 2006.
There is something to be said about comparing Dickens and Austen. They are both from a similar period, both write about families and relationships, and their characters are funny and not always likeable. The pivot to Austen began in 2017, says Bock. Shakespeare & Company presented Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley by renowned playwright Lauren Gunderson and collaborator Margot Melcon, based on characters in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The next year, they did a stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and that was when they realized they were onto something. Next, they did Sense and Sensibility, then the online Emma, several more versions of Christmas at Pemberley (each following different characters from Pride and Prejudice), and the live Emma this season.
In addition to focusing on Austen’s work, these holiday shows are performed as staged readings—actors hold scripts in hand, sets are simpler, and rehearsal time is much shorter. Bock has directed all the Austen-themed holiday productions.
“If we were to do a full production of the play we did last year, the last in the trilogy of Lauren Gunderson’s that explores Georgiana and Kitty, who are both talented piano players, we’d have a piano on the stage and figure out how to make it look like the actor was playing,” Bock says. “We didn't have a piano; we only had time to put the sound in. So, we had the actor sitting on a piano bench, miming playing. I was very nervous about it at first, but the actors really throw themselves into it. They love the scripts. The costumes are fantastic. The set is beautiful. And the audience seems to forget they are reading.”
The fourth wall is a concept in theater where an invisible line between the actors and the audience prevents interaction. Hamill describes Emma as breaking that convention. “When you break the fourth wall, you are addressing the audience directly,” she explains. “That very much plays into what I like to do theatrically. It embraces the role in a room together, as opposed to film and TV where you're watching a finished product.”
Actors Kirsten Peacock, Devante Owens, and Madeleine Rose Maggio have been involved at Shakespeare & Company for nearly 10 years and have appeared in many, if not all, of the holiday shows, including Emma by Zoom. They look forward to doing the play with a live audience in December. A staged reading, they all agree, offers the audience a chance to react and respond, to become part of the process.
“If you get the pages mixed up, they are with you,” says Peacock, who plays Emma. “We get the giggle and give the wink back.” Growing up in Norway and in other cultures, Peacock says that the holiday plays remind her of cozy traditions, like how you feel watching The Great British Bake Off, heartwarming and perfect for the holidays.
“It’s a peek into the actor’s process,” says Owens of staged readings, who not only is a Shakespeare actor around the region but teaches Shakespeare in New York. Owens plays characters Frank Churchill and Robert Martin in Emma and praises Shakespeare & Company’s approach with actors.
Maggio grew up in the Berkshires, her love of Shakespeare taking shape when she saw Midsummer’s Night Dream in Lenox as a child. Now directing in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, the very program she was part of as a student, she notes that training at Shakespeare & Company lends itself to the improvisational spirit of staged readings. Maggio, who performs as both Mrs. Weston and Mrs. Bate in Emma, calls the play a “growing up tale” and acknowledges its celebration of women’s voices, including their femininity and softness. “It’s so fun to be in pretty gowns and beautiful suits,” she says. “And it’s fun to laugh.”
Bock looks forward to continuing the tradition of giving the community the gift of Austen at the holidays. “There's a limited number of Jane Austen,” she says, “but there seems to be an unlimited number of adaptations of her work. I’m counting on more work from Kate Hamill and Lauren Gunderson, always happy to further women playwrights.”
Emma: A Lively, Costumed Reading, Friday–Sunday, December 13–15, Shakespeare & Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.
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