Wow, it was almost a year ago that I was listening to the music clips on the Sense and Sensibility the Musical website and was drawn into the show… Draw into it enough to want to see the production upon its arrival in Denver.
It has been a year and well… I did end up making that trip to Colorado specifically so I could see this production live. Don’t judge me.
First… the quickies:
– Acting: LOVE
– Vocals: LOVE
– Music / Orchestration: LOVE
– Set Design: LOVE
– Directing: LOVE
– OVERALL: LOVE!!!
I was seriously considering buying another ticket for the matinee production on Sunday but thought better of it.
But where to begin? Well to start the one thing I like is that there isn’t some massive ensemble in addition to the cast, there is a group of five to seven actors/actresses who help move the story along (a la A Little Night Music). Why five to seven? Because not only do they help move the story along, but some of them also play smaller parts in the production when needed:
– Lucy Steele
– Thomas (Dashwoods servant)
– Peter (London servant)
– Miss Grey (Willoughby’s bride)
– John and Fanny Dashwood
And others, but the above are the most “obvious” I would say.
Personally I didn’t notice when each of the above players were in the “ensemble” so to speak until much later in the production… which was a good thing… otherwise I would have to watch the show again just so I could see if I had missed anything.
Since this is my impression / review of the production itself I won’t go into detail about changes from the original novel… that is going to be a post in and of itself. However what I will say is this:
When it comes to the storylines of the Dashwood sisters the stage adaptation is fairly close to the novel (with a few changes here and there). When it comes to where a lot of where particular points of the storyline happens, there are far more changes that a total purist may not be too keen on, but for me being a purist… I find that the changes made were probably the best ones that could have been done.
But again that’s another post for another day.