Emma

Toni O’Rourke, Hannah Mamalis and Domhnall Herdman in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh.

****

How shall we put this? In popular parlance, Emma Woodhouse is what is commonly known as a bitch. A narcissistic egoist meddling in other people’s affairs for her own amusement whilst being indifferent to the cost on others. She'll tell you it's because she's bored, her uniquely clever mind meddling for lack of anything else to apply itself to. Indeed, self proclaimed matchmaker Emma will tell you lots of things. Yet even allowing the story is set at a time when women were raised to be uneducated wives, given that Emma can't see what's plainly obvious to everyone, even those who haven't read Jane Austen's Emma, and that all Emma's plans only make God laugh, her brilliant mind argument starts to feel like a stretch. And even allowing that she is really clever, Emma is still a bitch who thinks she's a celebrity influencer. A spoiled, entitled, self-centred, vivacious, utterly delightful and irresistible bitch. Who’s about to have an epiphany. Adapted from Austen's novel, American playwright Kate Hamill serves up an Emma for Gen Z. Hamill’s cinema styled, magpie script a hybrid of Bridgeton revisionism, Fleabag’s meta-theatrical direct address, and Barbie’s up front feminism. Tempered by a smidgen of Bridget Jones’ Diary and a Calum Scott moment, a la Robyn, serving as the cherry on top.

Patrick Martins in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh.

If director Claire O’Reilly elicits eight top drawer performances, they can suffer from Emma trying too hard to be funny. The first half relying on so much camp and kitsch it starts to look like a Royal Variety Performance sketch from the 1970s. O'Reilly failing to tap into the underlying pathos, going for the easy laugh. Emma’s relationship with Mr Knightley showing hints of The Taming of the Shrew, but none of its tension or passion. Her efforts to find a better class of husband for the lovestruck Harriet hinting, but never exploiting, issues of class, power and position. Austen’s comedy of class and manners seeing its class reduced to little more than a reference and its manners downplayed. O’Rielly trying to fill the vacuum with comedy when often it needed heart so we could feel deeper and laugh louder. The situation resolved somewhat in the second half where pace quickens and a reversal at a party introduces much needed pathos. There’s also a door into somewhere truly interesting during a pillow fight that swings open only to slam immediately shut. Leaving us with a predictable, happy ever after that falls more than a little flat, especially in light of the road not taken.

Ciara Berkeley in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh.

In between there’s lots of fun of varying quality wrapped in a heightened sense of the cartoonish. Molly O’Cathain’s set juxtaposing Victorian curtains with images of lovers against a garish colour scheme like an exploded box of crayons. Coupled with a bridge and bedroom to facilitate Hamill’s endless, cinematic scene changes. Colour again gone wild in Catherine’s Fays cartoon costumes, majestic in Sinéad McKenna’s clever wash of lights. Performances also lean into the cartoonish with Liz Fitzgibbon and Clare Barrett stealing scenes whatever their roles without even trying. Similarly Damian Kearney whether being a gruel obsessed curmudgeon or super smooth dancer. Patrick Martin’s also excellent as the old, old, friend zoned Mr. Knightley. Along with Toni O’Rourke as the eponymous, squealing, self-serving Emma. It’s a testament to O’Rourke’s talent that a character often reduced to one dimension is made utterly present and engaging. Yet it is three Abbey debutants who really stand out. Ciara Berkeley mesmerising as Emma’s nemesis Jane Fairfax, along with playing other roles. A brilliant Domhnall Herdman as the camp Mr Elton and kitsch Mr Churchill shows exquisite comic flair. As does Hannah Mamalis as the love hungry Harriet, an awkward, biscuit loving, obsessive dog of a soul given vivid expression by Mamalis. So brilliant is Mamalis the play might well have been called Harriet.

Toni O’Rourke and Emma Mamalis in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh.

If its engine sputters for much of the first half, once it kicks into life Emma proves a lively, joyous affair with a little song and dance thrown in for the sheer heck of it. Some might argue it reduces Austen’s classic novel to the level of a cartoon, but Emma aspires to genuine girl power, to bringing laughter to the Christmas season, and to always moving forward, onward and upward.

Emma by Jane Austen, adapted by Kate Hamill, runs at The Abbey Theatre until January 25, 2025

For more information visit The Abbey Theatre