THEATER
Pearl Theater
Vanity Fair
Adapted by Kate Hamill (Sense & Sensibility) from William Thackeray’s masterpiece, Vanity Fairexposes a society that cares more for good birth and good manners than for skill. But Becky Sharp, poor, plain, and devilishly clever, is determined to defy the odds through risky romantic entanglements, shady business practices, and social climbing at any cost; she won’t stop until the world lies at her feet.
‘Vanity Fair’ Review: Becky Sharp Takes the Stage
This adaptation of Thackeray’s novel is a masterpiece of creative compression.
By
Terry Teachout
New York
“Vanity Fair,” in which William Makepeace Thackeray recorded the adventures of Becky Sharp, who is prepared to do pretty much anything in order to claw her way to the top of Victorian England’s greasy pole of success, isn’t quite so widely read in the U.S. as it used to be. Nevertheless, it remains one of the 19th century’s most enduringly popular novels, and it’s amazing that no one seems to have successfully brought it to the stage until now. Enter Kate Hamill, whose 2014 Bedlam Theatre Company adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” was a well-deserved success and who has now turned Thackeray’s 1848 “novel without a hero” into a play. I’m suspicious as a rule of stage versions of classic novels, which are in most cases pointless attempts to “repurpose” a beloved book for purposes of profit. But Ms. Hamill’s “Vanity Fair,” which is being performed to coruscatingly brilliant effect by the Pearl Theatre Company, is something else again, a masterpiece of creative compression that is at once arrestingly original and faithful to its source material, and I’ll be flummoxed if it isn’t at least as big a hit as “Sense and Sensibility.”
The plot of “Vanity Fair” is far too labyrinthine to summarize neatly here. Suffice it to say that Becky (played by Ms. Hamill herself) and her best friend Amelia ( Joey Parsons ) seek to stay afloat in a society that has little to offer women with neither wealth nor position. Amelia, being fundamentally good at heart, sticks to the straight and narrow path of virtue, but the amoral, ruthlessly realistic Becky is more inclined to take the advice of one of the various protectors who take an interest in her progress through life: “Never be too good, nor too bad. The world will punish you for both. Try to pace right with the rest of us in the unnoticeable hypocritical middle.” Therein lies the comedy of “Vanity Fair,” a dead-serious romp whose implicit feminism has been given a sharper point by Ms. Hamill (the speech quoted above is by her, not Thackeray).
Ms. Hamill has envisioned “Vanity Fair” as a show performed by “a seedy band of roving actors, putting on a play with minimum effort.” The set, ingeniously designed by Sandra Goldmark, is a rundown theater dressed with the miscellaneous leavings of forgotten productions. In addition to Becky and Amelia, five men ( Zachary Fine, Brad Heberlee, Tom O’Keefe, Debargo Sanyal and Ryan Quinn ) divvy up 17 speaking roles between them, dressing and cross-dressing in full view of the audience and galloping through the evening with gleeful flair. “Vanity Fair” runs for two hours and 45 minutes, but you’d never guess it without recourse to your watch: Even with an intermission, it feels no more than 90 minutes long.
Eric Tucker, the director, is the co-founder of Bedlam Theatre Company, of which Ms. Hamill is also a member. As regular readers of this column will recall, I rank Mr. Tucker alongside David Cromer at the pinnacle of the short list of America’s most imaginative stage directors, and save for the fact that it’s being presented on a proscenium stage, his “Vanity Fair” has all the hallmarks of a Bedlam production. The quick-change shape-shifting of the cast, the outrageous physical comedy of the staging, the startlingly witty use of props: All are Mr. Tucker’s now-familiar trademarks, and all add immeasurably to the show’s impact.
Ms. Hamill’s Becky is a saucy, spunky schemer who, as the Victorians liked to say, is no better than she has to be. As for Ms. Parsons, one of my favorite New York-based actors, she has a genius for endowing seemingly thankless straight-man female parts with a warmth and emotional intensity that make them memorable. Her Amelia put me in mind of Olivia de Havilland, who showed us in “Gone With the Wind” and “The Heiress” that you can be good without being insipid. Of their five superlative colleagues, Mr. Fine has the choicest parts—he doubles as the outrageously worldly stage manager and Matilda Crawley, the flatulent cynic who’ll do anything for Becky but let him marry her son and heir—and plays them with urbane gusto.
It’s a cinch that “Vanity Fair” will soon be taken up by regional theaters across the U.S. I think, however, that it merits a more ambitious fate. Mr. Tucker’s production really ought to transfer to Broadway, where it would appeal to the same audience that kept “The 39 Steps” running for 771 profitable performances. Should any commercial producers read this review, take it from me: “Vanity Fair” is another cash cow waiting to be milked.
