Theater Review: Persuasion Speaks To Love And Confusion At Bedlam
With a cast determined to embody the tricks and regret of love lost, Persuasion manages to overcome its own, at times, confusion. While it could be hard to maintain “who is who” and their dynamics between each other, with a cast that switches between characters, Jane Austen’s tale on the twists life takes when you reject your chance at romantic joy feels aptly homaged. Adapted by Sarah Rose Kearn and directed by Eric Tucker, Persuasion is a 19th century comedy that still feels relatable in how one’s status and family can convince them away from the right choice for their heart.
When Anne (Arielle Yoder) rejects Captain Wentworth (Rajesh Bose), at age 19 via the pressures of her classist Godmother, she does not presume that 8 years later she will be single and considered “geriatric” in marriage circle. Status and her youth were used to persuade her against marrying for love, and, now, it her “older age” and status that is blocking her from getting marriage, at all. The irony is a rough one for Anne, whom out of the many characters you will meet, feels the most emotionally stable. Yoder plays the protagonist like the solid ground for her emotional yo-yo of a sister, Mary Musgrove (Shaun Bennet Fauntleroy) and her rambunctious husband Charles (Jamie Smithson): the latter two’s dynamic giving the play its biggest laughs. In essence, Anne is surrounded by the dysfunction of love, and quietly mournful that those with shaky marriages convinced her to let go of one that could have brought her joy.
Life gives Anne a second chance when Wentworth returns, and Bose plays up the difference between young, poor boy excited to be with his “dream girl” and a man trepidatious around the woman she became. In typical Austen fashion, there is always a humorous blockade to the potential understanding between lovers, and, in this play, it is Louisa (Claire Hsu) and Henrietta (Caroline Grogan). Hsu and Grogan are hilarious as two audacious, funny young sisters that want to be in love and get all the attention, at once. Their chase after Wentworth’s heart throws Anne off, and makes for some funny scenarios and deeper confrontations. Does Wentworth actually want to marry one of them or is he still hung up on Anne? Is she still in love with him?
With Nandita Shenoy, Randolph Curtis Rand, and Yonatan Gebeyehu switching to hilarious roles that build the solidity of both the cast and this play, Persuasion is, again, able to rise above its confusing narrative style to make something clear about Austen’s work: love and marriage are two separate things. For me, the fact that Persuasion captures what felt like Austen’s biggest, most innovative truth through her 1818 novel, signifies Tucker and Learn understood the assignment. (To Speak TikTok Trends) Beneath laughs and outlandishness, Persuasion amplifies Austen was ahead of the time in analyzing that being “someone” is never as magical as being with someone. Click Here To Buy Tickets as Persuasion plays until October 31 at Bedlam Theater on The Connelly Theater :220 E. 4th Street New York, NY 10009). Click Here To Buy.
