Emma in the footlights
The East Bay Express favorably reviews the stage production of EMMA currently being staged by the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, California.
Suggested by some as the predecessor to today’s vast wave of “chick lit” — thin novels with bright covers usually chronicling the struggle of hip single girls with fancy publishing jobs to pick the right shoes and husbands — Austen did in fact write about young women trying to make a place for themselves in a changing world by marrying well. But she did it slyly, using her novels to explore the restrictiveness of Regency-era British society, where women had few other options but to marry. She also wrote incisively about class, and that comes through strongly in Fry’s gloss, where five contemporary young people — apparently somewhere between late high school and college — decide to while away an afternoon playing out the beloved story of Emma, a charming meddler who fancies herself a matchmaker but has no idea of the true havoc she wreaks.
That sounds like fun, doesn’t it? And yes, that’s a hint, Californians. We would love to post a reader review of this production!
