Asolo Conservatory brings some ‘Sense and Sensibility’ to Cook Theatre

To the list of subjects that divide our world, you can apparently add author Jane Austen.

“The world is polarized in that way,” said director James Dean Palmer, who is staging a production of Austen’s 1881 novel “Sense and Sensibility” for the FSU/Asolo Conservatory.

“There are people who didn’t grow up with her and have nothing to do with her and another world where people who are called Austenites hang on every word,” he said.

Palmer says he stayed away from her novels for a while.

“I couldn’t understand what the attraction was. Where’s the conflict?” he said. “Now I look back and see how foolish I was. She’s not dealing with surface conflicts. She’s dealing with deep personal conflicts, our actual values with the world.”

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He was hesitant to take on the assignment until he realized the Conservatory was using an adaptation by Kate Hamill, whom Palmer describes as “the best adapter by far of Jane Austen’s work. She understands the actual Jane Austen, not the one handed down by Ang Lee films and BBC productions, the filmic legacy that is slow moving and a little precious at times.”

Those who only know the screen versions may not realize that Austen “writes fierce social satire, incredibly witty. She can turn a phrase, and Kate gets that in a way that I find delicious,” he said. “Working on comedies is hard because, at a certain point, you stop laughing at the jokes in rehearsals, but that’s not a problem with Kate’s adaptation.”

The production features the second-year Conservatory class, led by Rebecca Rose Mims as Elinor and Sharon Pearlman as Marianne, the Dashwood sisters, who are forced to move from their comfortable family home after the death of their father, and rebuild their lives as they face heartbreak while pursuing romance. Brielle Rivera Headrington plays their younger sister, Margaret.

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Palmer, who previously directed “Arcadia” for the Conservatory and staged an Asolo Rep on Tour production of “Julius Caesar,” said Hamill has created a “very faithful” adaptation of the novel.

“It follows the story to a T with all the characters, the major story points, but it does have a contemporary sensibility to it,” he said. Most of the cast members play significant characters and create a sort of chorus of local gossips who guide audiences through the story. “Gossip is always present in the book. Kate has just made it theatrical,” he says.

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With the Austen world, there’s another divide among fans, “folks who like the films and pictures of Regency era homes and sweeping vistas of English gardens and appreciate the nostalgia that Austen bakes into her work,” he said. And then there are those who see Austen “as a radical writer, challenging patriarchy, challenging the place of women in society and the value of wealth and status in society. Kate marvelously balances those two.”

He said the play should please those “who want to be swept away in the romance of Jane Austen, going back to a time gone by, and folks who like the rowdy, salty, social critic.

Palmer is working with a diverse cast who cross gender lines in their roles which allows him to explore the social codes and rules of the times. “Men and women have to perform these stupid rituals and the sisters asking why are they playing all these games,” he said.

The cast includes Jackson Purdy as the mother, Mrs. Dashwood (and others); Isaiah Phillips as the mother, Fanny Fanny (and others), Mrs. Dashwood (and others), Brooke Turner as the manipulative Fanny Dashwood, Isaiah Phillips as Edward Ferrars, Fanny’s brother, who becomes smitten with Elinor; and Falcian Page as Colonel Brandon who is attracted to Marianne.

‘Sense and Sensibility’

By Kate Hamill, based on the novel by Jane Austen. Directed by James Dean Palmer. Runs Nov. 1-20, Cook Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $35 ($25 for previews). 941-351-8000; asolorep.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ staged by FSU, Asolo Conservatory