MARTIN PARR

DIRECTOR

Sense and Sensibility

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Sense and Sensibility

By Jessica Swale after Jane Austen
Directed by Martin Parr

Cast
Third Year Acting Students at LIPA

Set Design
Stephanie O’ Hara
Costume Design
Fran Horler

Sennheiser Studio Theatre, Liverpool
November, 2015

The Dashwood sisters’ futures are spun off into a whirlwind of doubt and potential disaster, when a lightning storm brings an elusive stranger into their lives.

Jessica Swale’s incisive, witty, fast-moving yet fragile adaptation of this beloved classic is the intriguing and surprising story of the sisters who are hurtled from London to Devonshire and back again in pursuit of their dreams.

This full-blooded, fluid and cinematic production propels you from chandeliered ballroom to wind-swept heath to candle-lit parlour in a breath-taking second.

Ahead of her time, Austen’s heroines are impulsive, bold and have fighting spirit. The women are in the driving seat and you’ll never look at a hero on horseback in quite the same way ever again….

Performed in traverse with a magic box of trap doors, windows, stable doors and portholes, the production had great speed, dexterity and adaptability.

Actors were multi-cast so would appear from a trapdoor as one character and in the blink of an eye appear in a window at the other end of the stage as another.

Set to a score by Haydn, Handel, Bach and Vivaldi, the production was very much a theatrical piece in its own right.