Everything is imitation if it’s not the real thing
The Dallas Morning News has an article about the adapter of the stage production of Pride and Prejudice currently playing at the Dallas Theater Center.
“The other challenge is to put Jane Austen onstage so that she’s legible as Jane Austen, and at the same time create an actual theatrical experience,” the adapter says. “It is a novel, and the challenge is to create a correlative that has a theatrical vocabulary. We have a very limited amount of time and a limited number of people.”
Actually, by Dallas standards, the Theater Center has come up with a huge cast for this show. The two leads are recent graduates of Yale Drama School, and the other young people are mostly played by actors Mr. Wojewodski has taught since he came to Southern Methodist University. Some of Dallas’ leading professionals play the older roles, and two grandes dames from New York are portraying the dowagers.
This all sounds as it should.
Jane Austen fans can rest assured that Ms. Sheehy has been very faithful to the novel.
“I’m such an admirer of Jane Austen,” she says. “She essentially rescued my sanity when I had to commute between New Haven and New York. But I don’t read her imitators. Jane Austen’s mastery of language and insight into human nature can’t be mastered even if you get the Empire gowns right.”
Um, hon? You are one of the “imitators” now.
