Emma, adapted by Kate Hamill
Clueless vs. I Love Lucy?
I’ve sat on this for a year, after seeing Emma at the Guthrie last summer with my parents. My thoughts continue to be fragmentary and dissatisfied…much like the play. :D
The way the whole text is played through the I Love Lucy framing gives so much weight to the frame over the text, for me.
Giving Emma Mr. Knightley’s line “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” Just…why?
Re-arranging the order of events - specifically the strawberry picking, the ball at the Crown, and deleting Box Hill completely - not to mention changing the dialogue, setting, costuming - everything - so it no longer feels at all like Emma.
Rushing the first half, then altering the second half a huge amount, inserting sermon after sermon.
Mr. Knightley only 5 years older, removing Emma’s sister and his brother completely, making him equally silly - why do we even want Emma and this Knightley to marry? Mrs. Weston lecturing Mr. Knightley like he is a naughty child, further emphasizing the weakness of his character.
“What is Emma supposed to do”?
“Isn’t it fun to see me try”
“Onward, upward, forward!” - it’s nice to see structural repeated elements in dialogue, but these pieces have absolutely nothing to do with Austen’s language or themes.
4th Wall Breaking - addressing the audience, “You have read the book, that wasn’t in the book, you knew the whole time, you in the specific stage, calling out the director by name”, talking about who is in the title (including Harriet) - clever, but ultimately destructive.
Miss Bates is a teacher - which defeats her entire position in society as being completely dependent.
Really playing up Jane and Emma’s mutual dislike - not bad, but done so much better in the 2020 film.
Mrs. Elton has no lines, just a braying laugh. Ingenious casting to avoid adding another actor, but…Mrs. Elton is one of the best comedic villains in Austen!
Frank’s aunt dies really, really early, his relationship with Jane is odd - the whole shape of the story is nearly unrecognizable.
Mr. Martin a groundskeeper - what was wrong with farmer? Is the audience too dumb to see the difference in class?
As it’s a Guthrie theatre production, Hammill drops in Shakespeare quotes galore, including a very odd proposal by Mr. Elton couched in Shakespearing sonnet jokes. Fun for people who like Shakespeare, but it says nothing about Emma the book itself. Not even the two major Shakespeare references from the book are used, just new interpolated ones.
Altogether, I cannot recommend the play. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Hammill’s work on Sense and Sensibility which I saw at the Folger Theatre in DC, but this was far, far less satisfactory.