The Abbey doing Jane Austen: “Huh? Like the Gate of old?” you might say. But this isn’t a straight period-frock drama. For a start it’s a contemporary adaptation by the US actor and playwright Kate Hamill, being pitched as a reimagining of Emma for the “ brat ”- Bridgerton era.
Then it’s directed by Claire O’Reilly, a founder of Malaprop, the bold, inventive theatre collective, with Emma played by sparky rising star Toni O’Rourke. In the dressingroom they tell me rehearsals are “a ludicrous amount of fun, and hopefully that translates”. “It’s a real gift for me directorially,” says O’Reilly, a former resident director at the Abbey.
“You take a British Regency novel that’s set in a fictional, prosperous village, via Kate Hamill’s American screwball-comedy lens, then you stage it in the Abbey with Irish actors. You really dilute place. But it’s very faithful to plot and the essence of these characters.
” As well as “slightly distilled” place, the adaptation “lives in playful acknowledgment of the theatre itself and the audience. Emma speaks to the audience. It makes the other conventions of Austen’s world quite elastic in terms of vernacular or social convention.
” O’Rourke loves the fun and playfulness they’re bringing to it, and finds the adaptation surprisingly true to Austen’s 1815 comedy of manners. “When you read Jane’s book, you’re kind of shocked.” For example, “the concept of ‘friend-zoning’ is in it.
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