Brisbane review: Austen’s Sense and sensibility Entertains

By Lilian Harrington

Production: Sense and Sensibility

Writer: Jane Austen.

Stage adaptation: Kate Hamill

Director:  June Balfour

Company: St Lukes Theatre Society

Location: St Lukes Anglican Church,193 Ekibin Rd E. Tarragindi

Season: Friday and Saturdays from: November 21-December 2,

Evg. 7 30pm, Saturday Matinees 2 pm.

Bookings: https://www.trybooking.com

What’s not to like about Jane Austen’s novels. They have given readers a great insight into early English society and customs and they are seen as some of the most popular literary works in our history. It’s exciting to see Austen’s work adapted for the stage by Kate Hamill!  

Set in the late 18th. Century England, Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the two Dashwood sisters Elinor and Marianne, whose lives are changed after the death of their dear father.  Straight after the funeral their older brother John Dashwood and his formidable, manipulating  wife, Fanny Dashwood, take over the family home leaving very little time for the sisters and their mother to relocate to a new home.

The play is a comedy, but it shows social depth, as it looks at relationships, social expectations and emotional reactions pertinent to the times. The necessity to marry well and into money is emphasized, even though it leads to some unhappiness at times. This classic was presented in a very stylized format, and showed both the formalities of the period and social restraints, which made the characters seem one -sided at times from a modern perspective.  

St Luke’s Theatre Society is a very welcoming and well supported church community; recently, they have had to move their current stage performances for Sense and Sensibility into the church building, and while this is a very comfortable setting, it has impacted the production design.

Sense and Sensibility was staged with a minimum set, simple lighting and the actions were blocked in front of the screened off altar therefore, limiting most movements to Downstage Centre. The space was quite wide, and not so deep, and there were no easy side exits or entrances, which meant that the actors were all kept seated up stage upon exiting their scene.  This in turn proved to be distracting at times, if some actors sitting up- stage responded visually to the onstage action. The initial entrance was made from the back of the church; all actors were costumed in black and this costume theme was kept all through, apart from some simple changes made throughout the play.  Some attention was also given to the styles and coiffures typical of the era and in most cases this worked well.

Director June Balfour has incorporated some different ideas into her ensemble. The play has a large cast and Balfour had given some characters multiple roles, even a headless mannequin, then color coded them to denote that they were playing a different character by changing their colored belts, hats and jackets. At times the actions in the ensemble seemed stilted, juxtaposed by a lot of spoken dialogue, but Balfour has deliberately concentrated on the language in the play and the way the characters are drawn up.  Her lead characters Elinor Dashwood (Madelyn Scott) and Marianne Dashwood (Lillian Dowdell), displayed a good character progression throughout the play, showing how they dealt with life’s injustices, living their lives according to society’s norms of the day, while still finding ways to be happy and supporting others.  The characters of Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Gertrude Gossip (Phillipa Bowe), were played with such comedic flare and relief that it left the audience laughing. Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, shows a relevancy to today and it makes good theatre entertainment.