Reading a Jane Austen novel, our first observation is often how precise and measured the language is, even when characters seemingly lose all patience with themselves and the world. Everyone is "exceedingly sorry" about matters expressed as "arrant nonsense" or displays of "unbecoming indifference."
Watching Pioneer Theatre Company’s production of "Emma," what’s noticeable right away is just how precise and poised Michael Sharon’s gait is when he hits the stage as Mr. Knightley.
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Pioneer Theatre Company’s ‘Emma’
A graceful, almost perfectly measured stage portrait of a woman’s change of heart that makes you feel as if you’re walking right alongside Emma between Highbury and Hartfield.
When » Reviewed Friday, Feb. 17; continues through March 3. Mondays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays.
Where » Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East on the campus of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Tickets » $25-$44. Call 801-581-6961 or visit www.pioneertheatre.org for more information.
Running time » Two and a half hours, including a 15-minute intermission.
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As with Austen’s prose, so it is with Austen’s characters translated to stage by Jon Jory and directed by Matthew Arbour for Friday’s opening night performance, and no doubt the rest of the run.
Without the invaluable aid of Austen’s prose, every footstep, bend of the knee, gesture of the hand and arm held behind the back must speak in tandem with the dialogue if we’re to know every character to the fullest. PTC’s production wastes nary a movement in this luminous stage adaptation of what’s widely regarded as Austen’s finest novel.
If you’ve watched Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless" with a teenage daughter, you know "Emma" lends itself to an amazing array of adaptive possibilities. Done right, confusion can produce boatloads of charm and laughs. Jory’s adaptation, by contrast, stays true to Austen’s original novel all the way through, pausing only briefly to have Emma face the audience alone and speak directly to the incongruities she’s straining to understand. All the outward signs of a comedy of manners — and the laughs that go with it — are here. What predominates in this production, though, is a gentle plea for honesty in human relations, with taste and truth at its center.
If that sounds more pedantic than charming, don’t worry. Nisi Sturgis brings charm in abundance to the title role. As the girl with the matchmaking taboo, that charm grows steadily as she progresses from a busybody who’s also something of a snob to someone who realizes not just how foolish she looks but also the limits of her actions. Jory’s script never fails to highlight the irony of Austen’s prose, either.
"The extent of your adoration may take you by surprise, some day or other," she tells Knightley in one of several exchanges sure to make Austenites smile.
PTC’s set is all Regency-era England throughout, as though every salon and drawing room is part of a revolving dollhouse. Only a backdrop through the window changes color and weather from clear azure to stormy and scarlet dusk as Emma evolves.
The topmost challenge in achieving a note-perfect "Emma" is making her progression toward wisdom and maturation as surprising as it is necessary. Here the frosty facade of manners begins to thaw during Emma’s apology to Miss Bates, melting right through to the moment Knightley wears his heart on the most precipitous edge of his sleeve. It’s a crystalizing scene, almost effortless under Arbour’s direction.
The rest of the cast fills out drama in a wonderful turn of voices. Katie Fabel plays Harriet Smith naive at first, but so confident near the end that she’s a fine catalyst to Emma’s crucial revelations. Richard Gallagher delivers throughout as Mr. Elton, among the first pawns in Emma’s matchmaking games. Guileless and full of guffaws after his misjudged proposal to Emma, Gallagher mixes the awkward and impetuous to winning combinations in every line.
Like a string quartet with every instrument in balance, and dazzling cadenzas from Jory’s script, this "Emma" is, to borrow a line from Knightley, "very well done, indeed."
Twitter: @Artsalt
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