Theater review: Art of conversation shines in "Sense and Sensibility"
By Lawrance Bernabo, for the News Tribune Today at 3:13 p.m.
"Even the coiffures of the two oldest Dashwood sisters speak to their disparate natures: Elinor is
simple and sensible; Marianne's overly ornate, right down to the twin ringlets that frame her pretty
face.
In Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", it quickly becomes clear that Elinor (Katherine Grotte) feels
way too little while her sister Marianne (Jemma Provance) feels way too much. By the end of the
charming period play that opened at the College of St. Scholastica on Friday night, the girls will channel Goldilocks, get things just right, and live happily ever after.
Appropriately, the two main actresses shine most when they effectively trade places. Provance's high spirited Marianne glows once she encounters Willoughby, her would-be prince, but memorably
shatters when Elinor reads his fateful letter aloud. Grotte's best moments come in the second act when she pleads with the ill Marianne not to leave her alone in the world, and in both of her tortured
meetings with Edward.
In a nicely understated performance, Conor Reindl's Edward Ferrers is endearingly polite and equally awkward, while as the scoundrel Willoughby, Theodore Webster, quickly rubs us the wrong way. As
the soft spoken Colonel Brandon, Mitchell Gertken is the calm at the center of the dueling love storms.
Interestingly, Kate Hamill's script makes the narrative's turning point Marianne finally thinking about
somebody other than herself and fiercely defending her sister's artwork. The script also takes
advantage of every opportunity to interject comedy into the proceedings.
As Mrs. Jennings and Sir John Middleton, Shayna Shafter and the velvet voiced Adam Anderson
burst upon the scene like they just came out of Dickens novel. Armed with the world's loudest
whisper, Shafter takes Mrs. Jennings over the top and a bit beyond at times. Five "gossips" act as a Regency chorus and also serve as elegantly dressed stagehands, courtesy of costume designer
Sasha Howell.
This script gave a lot of characters their moments. Bailey Johnson is maternally stalwart as Mrs. Dashwood, Adrienne Skelton's young Margaret Dashwood has a flair for stomping off, and Nick Aspin and Hanna McLevish make John and Fanny Dashwood instantly dislikeable.
Bryn Soland's Lucy Steele smiles sweetly while destroying Elinor's love life. Cassandra Boucher's Anne Steele was vaccinated with the same phonograph needle as Mrs. Jennings, while Dawson
Ness' brief turn as the cottage-obsessed Robert Ferrers was a hoot.
The staging is theater in the square, so director Tammy Ostrander keeps the settings simple, often just an arrangement of wooden chairs, sometimes accented by a writing desk or a clavichord posing
as a pianoforte. Since with Austen the focus is on the art (and artifice) of conversation, this is quite appropriate.
Of course this staging requires characters to take turns facing in all directions, which means you may or may not see the dead eyes Marianne turns towards Fanny at dinner or her predatory smile when Willoughby returns to recite poetry.
Finally, while Austen would certainly disapprove of some things Elinor does in her final scene with
Edward, her behavior suited the audience just fine."
If you missed out on these amazing performances, do not fear! There are more performances this weekend!
The show dates are as follows:
November 9, 10, & 11 @ 7:30pm and November 12th at 2pm. The performance on November 12th is ASL Interpreted!
Hope to see you there!
Adrianna Bail
CSS House Manager
Christmas break is nearly upon us, and the Theatre's shops are closing up. We plan to rest up, recharge our creative batteries, and come back next semester to finish off a fantastic theatre season! We've got two great shows lined up for all of you. Our next show is "Eleemosynary", directed by Merry Renn Vaughan, and will be performed the first two weeks of February. After that, we have "Journey's End", directed by Kelly Mullan. "Journey's End" will be showing April 13th-22nd. We look forward to two more amazing shows and we hope you're all excited as we are!
