The Merely Players’ fall production will open tonight, Sept. 28, at the Old Fort Lewis property in Hesperus. It is 15 miles west of Durango at 18683 County Road 140. There is plenty of parking, albeit in an open field adjacent to the 1938 library building.
“The audience will be seated on two sides of a lane that runs through the middle of the room,” Wood-Patterson said. “That’s the acting area, and we always have to think about entrances and exits.”
Wood-Patterson said the room has three doors, one at the front through which the audience will enter, and one at the back that goes outside. The actors will be able to go around the outside of the building and enter from another door. But the third door leads to an indoor kitchen, so that’s a blind space. “It’s been challenging,” she said.
“‘Sense and Sensibility’ has been on my list of a work of art I’d like to see us perform for a long time,” she said. “Kate Hamill’s adaptation first appeared Off-Broadway in 2014 in New York. In 2016, Charles (Ford, co-artistic director of the company and Wood-Patterson’s husband) and I saw it in New York. Then we saw another production this last summer at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was done on a proscenium stage and just didn’t capture the magic of the work. They used period costumes and lots of props, not my concept at all.”
Wood-Patterson added that it has taken time to get the rights for a nonprofessional company. But permission finally came through in time to make Hamill’s adaptation the opening production of the 2018-19 season.
Adding to the considerable complications of a found space, a contemporary adaptation of a famous Jane Austen novel presents other demands. Actor/playwright Hamill refers to herself as a collaborator with the famous novelist. Throughout “Sense,” Hamill incorporates Austen’s text, often shortening long passages into essential thoughts. She also tracks the story in 45 fairly fast-paced scenes, clearly a contemporary practice for modern audiences. Multiple locations must be imagined, and many cast members fill multiple roles.
The story centers on the Dashwood family whose recently deceased father has left his entire estate to the eldest son, John (Miles Batchelder). John reneges on his promise to provide for his mother (Mandy Gardner) and his three sisters, Elinor (Mary-Catherine McAlvany), Marianne (Gyana Gomar) and Margaret (Anna Klumpenhower). Fortunately, Sir John Middleton (Marc Arbeeny), a distant relation, steps in with the offer of a modest cottage for his poor relations, and the uncertainties of the future unfold one suitor at a time.
Central to Hamill’s adaptation is the incorporation of town gossips. Their busy-body machinations substitute for Austen’s use of a narrator and provide the social framework for encounters, actions and decisions that shape the fate of the entire Dashwood family.
The production quickly sold out, Wood-Patterson said, so the company scheduled one additional performance for Oct. 3. Then Ford realized he could add six seats per performance, and so there are tickets available. Call 949-8585 to inquire.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
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