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Not enough twists, turns to save 'Emma'
(by Herb Hammer - March 11, 2010)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
Not enough twists, turns to save 'Emma'
Jane Austen's classic romantic comedy takes on a new look in the hands of Cleveland Play House Director Michael Bloom. Mr. Bloom has adapted "Emma" for the stage and has turned over the directorial reigns to Peter Amster. Whether this team works well together depends a lot on your sense of 1815 humor.
Surely the director and the adaptor have done their homework, the question lies in whether "Emma" is worth doing at all. I think not.
The paper-thin characters and their useless lives tend to leak the nearly 200-year-old humor until there's nothing left but a stage full, 16 in all, of snooty Brits whose only meaning in life is who to marry and who not to marry.
Miss Austen presents us with the title character, the rich Emma Woodhouse, who fancies herself a very important matchmaker. The marriage of her best friend, Miss Taylor, to a Mr. Weston has convinced Emma of her matchmaking ability. But now she has no one else to match, which is troubling, until along comes Harriett Smith, a somewhat slow-witted young woman looking for a husband.
Emma is now back in business peaking into everyone's lives and wishing she could read their minds.
Outside of the poor and fast-talking Miss Bates who gets in the way of the silly, often boring story, the rest are made up of the privileged class of Regency, England.
The piano competition and the formal dancing tend to drag the meaningless story line. But don't blame Mr. Bloom who sticks close to the plot, senseless or not.
The plot takes a few twists and turns, and even though the beautiful Emma Woodhouse doesn't always get her own way, she manages to get everyone married off.
In the end even Emma, who vowed never to marry, finds love and then marries Mr. Knightly, whose been hanging around through the entire play.
The stage is inhabited by some talented actors. Best of all is Sarah Nealis who plays Emma, her complicated but rather silly life carries the story along. Miss Nealis shines a light on some very silly plot contrivances.
Patrick Clear does get some comic mileage out of Emma's hypochondriac father, while deadly serious Mark Montgomery fairs well as Mr. Knightly.
Robert Mark Morgan has fashioned a glorious estate set with sliding panels and an entire scene that arrives and departs from a trapdoor center stage.
Costume designer Kristine Kearney makes her actors look quite at home in their early and attractive 19th-century costumes.
Though Michael Bloom and Peter Amster have both put a true-to-Jane Austen-book together on stage, they have done nothing, or could they have done anything, to make the complicated yet dull comedy come together.
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