Regency Wears Chucks at This Austen Ball
Dacha Theatre’s rollicking modern ball maintains everything to love about Jane Austen’s enduring character. Emma runs through April 19 at 12th Avenue Arts.
Speaking of the titular main character of her soon to be published 1815 novel, Emma, Jane Austen quipped, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” So, despite describing glittering social butterfly Emma Woodhouse in the novel’s opening lines as “handsome, clever, and rich,” even Austen acknowledged her to be far from perfect. And let’s face it: that’s what Austen devotees like best about her.
Playwright Kate Hamill’s revolutionary reimagining of the novel zeroes in on some of Emma’s most unlikeable, most radical traits, and in doing so creates a heroine very much of the 21st century. Dacha Theatre’s immersive production of Emma, directed by Sophie Franzella, is a romp with heart, boasting prom-queen-in-Chuck-Taylors energy and a cast that’s good, game, and brimming over with love for its perfectly imperfect characters.
The belle of every ball, Emma (Rachel Guyer-Mafune) is young, rich, beautiful, and bored to tears with her stifled upper-class life. Having just arranged a brilliant match for her surrogate mother, governess Mrs. Weston (Kayla Walker), Emma has even less to occupy her time. So, flush from her recent matchmaking success, Emma charges forward, determined to pair off every eligible guy and gal in the countryside, starting with lovable but clueless newcomer Harriet Smith (Emily Huntingford). All this is despite the blandishments of her old, old family friend, George Knightley (MJ Jurgensen), the only other person besides Mrs. Weston who Emma (on occasion) listens to. But does Emma even know her own heart, much less that of her friends and neighbors?
Dacha’s production of Emma is a shiny pink confection with punk in its soul, embodied with wit and verve by leading lady Guyer-Mafune. Her Emma is a powerhouse who’s always in motion, charging around the stage with her head and shoulders forward like a bull when she isn’t leaning back into a sort of power pose, and although she’s playing up the character’s more ridiculous aspects, there’s a great deal of heart behind her Emma’s seemingly shallow surface. Hamill’s fourth-wall-breaking thesis, by the end of the piece, is that although Emma deserves to be criticized for her meddling in other people’s affairs, what can you expect when bright young women are given no outlet for their minds and talents? Guyer-Mafune’s performance taps into that vein of desperation, believably moving Emma from shallow socialite to feminist revolutionary without missing a beat, while still keeping the audience in stitches.
The rest of the cast is packed with talent, from Huntingford’s impressionable Harriet to Jurgensen’s sweetly bumbling Knightley to James Schilling’s sleazy, slinking Mr. Elton and beyond. Most of the show’s cast members are called on to do double — or even triple — duty, with some actors portraying multiple characters as well as performing in the show’s onstage band, and they all keep the action, and the comedy, barreling forward.
Costume designer Ro Miller’s approach to the show’s design throws Regency dress and Gen Z aesthetics in a blender and hits puree; the resulting look is ballgowns and tennis shoes, bonnets and barrettes from Claire’s, and an Eras Tour level of friendship bracelets on display. It shouldn’t work; it definitely does. Meanwhile, scenic designer Devin Petersen presents the action on a long, narrow stage, splitting the audience into two sections like spectators at a sporting event, and festooning the setup with party hats, streamers, and swirling floral designs, with the action twirling around (and sometimes interacting with) the tables onstage devoted to those audience members who chose the more immersive experience of the piece.
As a dyed-in-the-wool Austenite, I had an initial knee-jerk reaction to some of the more sweeping changes to the story in Hamill’s script — including, sacrilegiously, giving what’s probably Knightley’s best line to Emma — but in a world of trad wives and “girl math,” it’s hard to take too much offense at a play proposing that a world full of bright, brilliant Emmas, all working at their full potential to raise other women to theirs, could change the world for the better. Dacha’s production is a playful, anything-but-stuffy take on a novel that still speaks to the moment, 250 years after its author’s birth. Beat that with a stick.
Emma runs through 4/19 at 12th Avenue Arts on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Tickets here. Sliding-scale and pay-what-you-choose tickets offered for all performances. Accessibility notes: restrooms are multi-stall and gender-neutral; there is one single-stall, gender-neutral restroom near the theatre entrance. Theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible.
Run time: 2 hours 15 minutes, with intermission.
Jill Farrington Sweeney is a Texas ex-pat getting to know the Seattle-area arts scene, and is perpetually on the hunt for good Mexican food. Her writing has appeared on TheaterJones, Onstage NTX, and NWTheatre.