{"id":109669,"date":"2016-02-26T09:42:53","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T14:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu?p=109669&preview_id=109669"},"modified":"2016-03-03T09:20:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T14:20:19","slug":"sense-sensibility-tells-tale-life-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/02\/sense-sensibility-tells-tale-life-love\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sense and Sensibility’ Tells Tale of Life and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s production of\u00a0\u201cSense and Sensibility<\/a>\u201d is full of movement, with short scenes and shifting locations that make it feel cinematic, according to director Kristin Wold.<\/p>\n

The constantly changing nature of the Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan stage adaptation of Jane Austen\u2019s novel is a natural fit for Wold, assistant professor-in-residence for performance, who teaches acting and stage movement in UConn’s Department of Dramatic Arts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that it\u2019s written is very cinematic. The scenes tend to be pretty short. We\u2019re changing location constantly,\u201d she says. \u201cHow to tell a story in that way on stage has been part of the fun and challenge of working on it. We wanted to make sure to get the depth of the characters when we\u2019re moving so quickly. It\u2019s a pretty epic story. I think that happens all the time when you adapt. How do you tell a novel in a two-hour event and do it justice? I think we get the depth of who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on Austen\u2019s popular novel, a staple of English literature classes that is centered on romance, emotion, and reason in a family, the CRT production opened Feb. 25 and will be performed at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre through March 6.<\/p>\n

\"Guest<\/a>
Guest artist Cynthia Darlow (Mrs. Jennings) and Jenn Sapozhnikov, ’17 (SFA) (Mrs. Palmer) in the CRT production of ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ now playing at the Harriet Jorgensen Theatre. (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The central roles of the Dashwood sisters are played by second-year MFA acting candidate Arlene Bozich as Elinor and senior acting student Susannah Resnikoff \u201916 (SFA) as Marianne. The cast features special guest artists Cynthia Darlow as Mrs. Jennings and Don Noble as Sir John Middleton\/Henry Dashwood. Darlow is a founding member of American Repertory Theatre with Broadway roles in \u201cBilly Elliot,\u201d \u201cAccent on Youth,\u201d \u201cRabbit Hole,\u201d and \u201cPrelude to a Kiss,\u201d among others. Noble is a Broadway veteran whose credits include \u201cOnce\u201d and \u201cThe End of the Rainbow\u201d and the National Tour of \u201cMamma Mia!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wold says one of the challenges of this stage version of \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d is the large number of characters in the story as written by Hanreddy and Sullivan, who were also the writing team behind CRT\u2019s well received production of \u201cPride & Prejudice.\u201d The playwrights developed a script for professional theaters that allows dual roles for 13 actors, but in order to provide additional acting experiences for students, in the CRT production there are 21 actors.<\/p>\n

The director notes that one of the challenges for some of the student actors is that they are portraying much older characters in the story, requiring them to expand their nonverbal acting skills.<\/p>\n

\"Guest<\/a>
Guest artist Don Noble (Sir John Middleton) and Braley Degenhardt, ’18 (SFA) (Lady Middleton) in the CRT production of ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ now playing at the Harriet Jorgensen Theatre. (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA lot of the students are in roles that they are growing into,\u201d Wold says. \u201cI\u2019m trying to help them take that on and find themselves, giving them the physical framework to play in. Hopefully, they will find what they need relative to the other [actor] physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scenic designer Tim Brown, assistant professor-in-residence of scenic design, and lighting designer Margaret Peebles, second-year MFA candidate in lighting, have created a set that is simple and flexible, allowing the audience to recognize where the action occurs, with period costumes from 18th-century London.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe play is asking the audience to engage their imagination in helping to create the truth of where we are,\u201d Wold says. \u201cIt\u2019s deliberately theatrical. I think that\u2019s part of the fun of the play.\u201d<\/p>\n

She notes that the set and costuming help focus the audience on the intimacy of the relationships that are primary to Austen\u2019s tale of how the Dashwood sisters try to follow their own path through life and love, following their father\u2019s unexpected death, despite the size of the stage at the Jorgensen Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntimacy played in a large space is always a challenge. In a play that is pretty intimate, it\u2019s harder to do that probably than to do Shakespeare in a big space, in my opinion,\u201d says Wold, who is a member of Shakespeare & Company<\/a> in Lenox, Mass.<\/p>\n

\u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d will be performed at the Harriet Jorgensen Theatre in the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, 2132 Hillside Road, Storrs, on Feb. 26, Feb. 27, March 4, and March 5 at 8 p.m.; and on March 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m.; with matinees on March 5 and March 6 at 2 p.m. For more information, go to the Connecticut Repertory Theatre website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students playing roles in CRT’s production of the period drama must portray characters across the generations as well as the centuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":109697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,2459,2076,1914,1875,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1918],"class_list":["post-109669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-graduate-students","category-research","category-sfa","category-grad-school","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 00:50:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109669"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109705,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109669\/revisions\/109705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/109697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109669"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=109669"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=109669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}