May 30, 2008

Pear's best production yet

Austen's first novel makes theatrical world premiere

By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer

When it comes to chick flicks, Jane Austen has no peer. That's made eminently clear once again, with a lively and moving world premiere stage adaptation of Austen's first novel, "Northanger Abbey," at the fun, intimate 45-seat Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View.

"Northanger Abbey," which went unpublished during Austen's lifetime, is the story of an intelligent and kindhearted, but giddy young woman with a hyperactive imagination who is obsessed with romantic gothic novels. Eventually she learns the hard way that not everyone is as kind and generous-spirited as she.

Director Rebecca J. Ennals has staged Pear Avenue artistic director Diane Tasca's adaptation of the novel in a manner similar to the way shows are done by San Francisco's highly successful company Word for Word.

That means that the stage script for "Northanger Abbey" contains not just dialogue, but a large amount of non-dialogue narration taken directly from Austen's text. The art of staging a script like this includes assigning these sentences of non-dialogue narration thoughtfully to specific actors, so that they end up playing both narrator and character parts, back and forth in quick alternation.

This allows the actors to have many moments when they can shift between playing their characters and playing an omniscient narrator who gets to comment on the character. This creates a rich and dramatic gloss on the text, and opens up a lot of wonderful performance moments. The current Pear adaptation uses this approach effectively.

In "Northanger Abbey," giddy romantic Catherine Moreland goes to Bath for a weekend and meets a gal pal. Together they read romance novels, gossip, go to dances and flirt with men.

Soon each gets involved in a triangle. Then lying, deceit and all the other good heart-wrenching stuff of romance novels ensue.

The super-talented Annamarie MacLeod anchors this production as intelligent, ethical, light-spirited, charismatic Catherine - a typical Austen heroine. MacLeod has the tools to be a big star some day.

There are many other good performances from an ensemble case of eight actors who play a slew of multiple roles. Michael Barrett Austin is an excellent complement to MacLeod, as the handsome young gentleman Tilney whom Catherine falls for. Melissa Quine stands out as the gal pal with skunky ulterior motives.

Among the effective touches in director Ennals' fast-paced production are several English country dancing scenes, in which slow and relaxed choreography offers many lyrical opportunities for the juxtaposition of dialogue and narration among the performers.

The night I attended, one rare discord in the performances occurred when Tilney, sitting after a walk with Catherine and his sister, expressed an almost bitter and rude edge to his manner, which created a false character note.

With its strong and interesting characters, "Northanger Abbey" is vintage Austen in the way it interweaves romance with a deep concern for moral and ethical behavior. There was some choppiness to the second half, however, as story beats shifted abruptly.

One segment about Catherine's obsession with a haunted house seems so oblique a narrative detour, that it's almost a non-sequitur. At the same time, MacLeod's performance in this scene is charming, as her Catherine's obsessive romantic enthusiasm has trouble distinguishing between what's in her imagination and what's in the real world.

This is the best Pear Avenue production I've seen. If you haven't been to this tiny local theater before, this is the moment to visit. And it's a chance to see Annamarie MacLeod before she becomes a big star.

Rating: Three stars

E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@yahoo.com.