By Luke Voogt
A “cyclone” of slapstick and gossip whirls around the Dashwood sisters in a play director Geordie Bookman describes as “Jane Austen on steroids”.
“They’re kind of the still point of the play and everything else is almost constantly moving around them,” he told the Indy.
Bookman jumped at the chance to direct New York playwright Kate Hamill’s adaptation of the classic novel Sense and Sensibility.
Hamill had added action to the book’s plot while “maintaining the heart of the original,“ Bookman said.
“The play is irreverent and very silly – it goes at absolute break-neck speed.”
But in his Australian production Bookman had used “pretty much every trick” to upscale the play, like taping Teflon skids to the bottom of furniture.
“The furniture literally arrives at high-velocity being flung onstage,” he said.
“You don’t get any moments for the stage crew to walk on and move equipment – the play doesn’t stop.“
Hamill wrote the show for a 200-seat theatre with a stage containing two pieces of furniture and a set of French doors, Bookman explained.
“We have 30 scenes, 15 locations and most of the actors are playing four or five characters each,” he said.
“But we’re tapping into the same spirit and inventiveness as her.”
Hamill’s inventiveness included writing parts which Jane Austen left out including “one signature moment” when a character fails to find words, Bookman said.
Hamill lifted words from another Austen novel, Emma, to fill that gap, he said.
“Something that would have happened on the fringes of the novel often gets pulled into the central narrative in the play.”
The play also heightened the “social anxiety” and gossip that Austen alluded to, Bookman said.
“We’re distilling a massive dense book into a two hour and twenty minute play – it’s about the furthest thing from boring you can imagine.”
Bookman said his cast had worked to their “absolute limit” to create the play, which comes to Geelong Performing Arts Centre for four shows between 7 and 9 June.
“They’re so well drilled and good at it now it’s a really joyous play to perform.”
About half of the 600-person audience for the play’s opening night in Adelaide were young while the other half were elderly, Bookman said.
The mixture of slapstick, wordplay and pop culture references in the script offered something for everybody, he said.
“It’s a really super fun night at the theatre and we’re really looking forward to coming back to Geelong.”
