Yvonne Siddique, Zach Zelnio, Elizabeth Melville, Thayne Lamb, Emma Terronez, Kady Patterson, Legend Donaldson, Mike Turczynsnki, and Lena Slininger in Sense & Sensibility

I must begin with an apology and a confession. Sorry to my British Literature professor in college: I never read Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, nor did I read her Pride & Prejudice. If you were generous, you could say I skimmed. But it’s okay (at least for me), because the most recent production at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre is so good, it makes me regret being a negligent student.

Admittedly, the setup for the story is a little dense. At the start, our two main protagonists, the Dashwood sisters Eilnor (Legend Donaldson) and Marianne (Lena Slininger), suffer the loss of their father. He leaves his estate to his firstborn John (Zach Zelnio), who has recently married the nasty Fanny (Elizabeth Melville), who doesn’t much care for her new in-laws. She makes them feel so unwelcome that the Dashwood family, sans John, strike out on their own. And that’s just the first scene. From there, Elinor and Marianne each try to navigate love and life in early 19th-century England, where every fourth word is “dowry,” and everyone is the cousin of a brother of an aunt.

Much like ENG-214, I wouldn’t have been able to relay most of that to you without the help of Wikipedia. But if that last paragraph makes Sense & Sensibility seem complicated, worry not: Director Jennifer Kingry has worked her magic yet again.

Nearly everything here brought a smile to my face. If you’ve ever seen a Kingry show (and if you haven’t: Go! Now! Go see this!), then you know you can expect exceptional lighting, which she provides again here. In similar company, Elizabeth Wilkinson’s sound design is fantastic; employing classical versions of pop songs is a great choice for making old material feel new. And the period costumes by Kingry and Ann Keeney-Graft are gorgeous, with the cast bathed in bright colors. From the moment you walk in, you’re greeted by the elegant and sleek set design that includes spotless bright white furniture and a beautifully green stage, which only serves to further highlight how good the costumes are.

Mike Turczynski, Zach Zelnio, Elizabeth Melville, and Thayne Lamb in Sense & Sensibility

What’s more, the entire set is mounted on wheels! And how wonderfully those wheels are used. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such smooth scene transitions. Or chair choreography! (Oh, the chair choreography … .) Kingry somehow found a way to make scene transitions fun. There was a point during Friday’s performance in which a chair slid up the length of the stage through a set transition and I let out a gasp.

Every element complemented what was around it, and while Kingry’s director note would have you believe this was at least partially thanks to the original off-Broadway production, I reject her premise. Even if you’re emulating what you’ve seen elsewhere, it still takes a great deal of artistry and talent to make things look and sound as good as they do here.

Even with the outstanding technical elements, this Sense & Sensibility would still be nothing without its enchanting ensemble, almost all of whose members play multiple roles – roles that include (but are not limited to) dogs, garden decorations, clocks, and more. Emma Terronez and Kady Patterson portray women of the Dashwood family, as well as some of their more eccentric neighbors, and both seem to have a blast playing opposites throughout the production. Yvonne Siddique and Michael Turczynski bring comedic relief, with Turczynski managing to make me laugh with almost every single one of his lines. Zelnio, Craig Gaul (who primarily plays a character I’ll call Colonel Friendzone), and Thayne Lamb play the multiple suitors, each managing to be somehow both charming and smarmy.

Craig Gaul, Kady Patterson, Zach Zelnio, Emma Terronez, Lena Slininger, Yvonne Siddique, and Mike Turczynski in Sense & Sensibility

Meanwhile, Melville is fun-to-hate as Fanny and multiple other Mean Girls. In a different script, each of these performers could very well steal a scene, if not the whole show. But here, they all blend together seamlessly, thanks in large part to the two main sisters portrayed by Slininger and Donaldson. They may not get to have as much fun as their castmates (19th-century heartbreak, after all, is so taxing), but the performers still manage to stand out on their own. Slininger wears her heart on her sleeve and keeps you rooting for Marianne through her many many misfortunes. But the real heart of the show is Donaldson, whose Elinor grounds everything with charm and poise, like a character leapt straight out of a novel.

Friday's opening-night performance wasn't without fault, as the mixture of accents, varying volumes on line deliveries, and aggressive air-conditioning sounds made for some hard-to-follow dialogue. These issues weren't a problem the entire time, however, and I found myself thinking of really good Shakespeare at certain moments: Even when I couldn’t follow the language, I could always follow the emotion.

It’s so rare to go to the theatre and be genuinely surprised. But scene after scene, Playcrafters' Sense & Sensibility had me saying “Wow.” It doesn’t matter if you like Jane Austen or not. If you’re a fan of theatre, you’ll find a lot to love here. And to my aforementioned professor: If the book is even half as fun as this production is, I should probably have given it a try.

 

Sense & Sensibility runs at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre (4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL) through May 14, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 and visiting Playcrafters.com.

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