November 20, 2013
There could hardly have been more difference between the two dramatisations of Jane Austen novels we have seen in Oxford this week. Whereas Two-Bit Classic’s rendition of Pride and Prejudice at the Pegasus last week remained faithful to the original in every detail of period, plot, character and text, Theatre Oneohone’s production of Emma on Thursday translated the tale into a 21st century experience. While the Pride and Prejudice audience stayed securely on the opposite side of the footlights, Emma’s audience became centre-stage of the action and, instead of merely watching events unfold, we found ourselves experiencing at first hand the emotional predicaments of characters in the novel.
Emma’s misguided matchmaking attempts in Regency England were reinterpreted as a naïve entrepreneur starting a dating agency, with the audience as clients. We were required to detail our status in the marriage market – our assets, our prospects and our aspirations. Almost immediately we were made to swap seats and sit beside a random stranger – experiencing the situation in which Jane Austen’s heroines so often find themselves, of being trapped in a polite conversation with a person of no relevance to us while straining to monitor the object of our affections across a crowded room. Spectators were plucked from the audience to perform party pieces, dance, and be subjected to Emma’s embarrassing schemes for pairing unlikely couples.
Blackwell’s Bookshop was a helpful setting for this piece, serving as a constant reminder that this was a rendering of the novel Emma, rather than a random set of improvisations and party games. The proceedings were also punctuated by brief returns to the original world and story of Emma, marked by a cinematographic-style change in the acting, a theatrical version of slow motion and lens change, as the frenetic 21st century pace and slang abruptly gave way to controlled movement and regency language.
Theatre Oneohone’s production was a fascinating attempt to bring this novel to life in an innovative immersive fashion. Other than Emma and Mr Knightley, the characters were played as larger than life caricatures – a repellently oily Frank Churchill, and a Hettie and Gus (Ausgusta) who had us squirming with embarrassment on their behalf. However, the thrill in the atmosphere came more from the audience’s nervous tension (“What will they make us do next, and will they pounce on me?”) than any dramatic tension derived from engagement with the cast or involvement in the story, and when the denouement came one could sense the universal relief and pleasure that the story had finally returned to the secure world of predictability.
Theatre Oneohone were wise to present this as a one-night-only production: although the audience left smiling, laughing and stimulated, having enjoyed the evening and participated with a good grace, I cannot imagine that many of them would recommend their friends to subject themselves knowingly to it. In between the animated discussion of the book it provoked, I also overhead one audience member saying “I need a stiff drink after that!”