Actors’ Shakespeare Project “Emma” in Cambridge

The accelerated, unhindered pace established and maintained by director Regina Vital requires quick and sharp movements, both physical and verbal. Vital’s cast is more than up to the task, bringing to life a jumble of coincidences, mismatches, misunderstandings and misplaced passions, riddled with hidden agendas, belated revelations and a few happily ever afters.

And in any dramatization we lack the prose of the novelist, especially this writer, Austen’s essence can be found at the core of ASP’s Emma.

Hamill’s love for romance is palpable, and her “Emma” really reminds us of the stakes of what can seem like a frivolous gamble for status. In the early 19th century, marriage was nothing more than a survival tactic for women. They didn’t have much choice, and finding a husband could mean the difference between a secure life and an unstable one.

Additionally, Emma Woodhouse is one of the most unforgettable characters Austen has ever created. In the ASP production at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Centre, when 20-year-old Emma is told, “You can’t control everything,” her response is quick: “But isn’t it fun to watch me try?”

Indeed, it is so. Especially when Emma is played by Josephine Moshiri Elwood.

For some time, Elwood shone in supporting roles on stages in Boston. Playing the titular figure in Emma, she hits a big shot and completely knocks it out of the park.

Ellwood is rarely backstage in “Emma,” which runs nearly two and a half hours, including a 15-minute intermission. I watched Emma on Sunday evening after the matinee. Thus, Elwood and the rest of the cast only had a couple of hours of rest between performances. You wouldn’t know it by their energy level.

Elwood’s Emma is a natural-born busybody with an unstoppable buoyancy, convinced that other people’s business is her business, and that when it comes to romance, she knows what’s best for others.

Her friend George Knightley (a very good Alex Bowden) isn’t so sure. The verbal battles between Emma and George – as with Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, Sam and Diana from Cheers, Curly and Laurie from Oklahoma!, Devi and Ben from Never Have I Ever – are only a prelude to romance.

Hamill’s specialty is adapting literary classics for the stage, including Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Little Women. “Vanity Fair”And three more works by Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

Given Hamill’s success (she consistently ranks as one of the most frequently appearing playwrights in the country), it’s safe to assume there’s been a lot of back-slapping as other playwrights wonder why They I didn’t think of such an idea.

Emma’s meddling reaches new heights with Harriet Smith (the stunning Lisa Giangrande), a young and simple-minded junior high student who becomes not just a friend but a project for Emma. Despite Harriet’s romantic feelings for gardener Robert Martin, Emma decides to consummate the marriage between Harriet and Mr. Elton, a smug clergyman portrayed by Fady Demian. When Martin proposes marriage to Harriet in a letter, she refuses him, egged on by Emma. Mr. Elton ends up falling in love with… well, someone else.

Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, so impressive last year “A Raisin in the Sun”and “DIASPORA!” at the New Repertory Theater of Watertown brings a regal poise to the role of Jane Fairfax, who hides her affair with Frank Churchill (Demian again). Frank, for his part, seems to be stalking Emma. There are other complications.

Hamill’s work is, or should be, on the radar of Boston theatergoers. Two years ago she “Dracula (Actually a Feminist Revenge Fantasy)” was presented by Umbrella Stage in Concord. In February, the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge will host the world premiere of Hamill’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey.

“I wanted to create new classics that were aimed at women, especially feminist classics.” Hamill told Globe reporter Jeremy Goodwin. in 2019. “And I wanted to start with Jane Austen because when I started writing this, almost all the stage adaptations that I knew of had been written by men, and I thought: Why is this proto-feminist author being filtered through a man? watch all the time? This seems crazy.”

EMMA

Game by Kate Hamill. Based on the novel by Jane Austen. Directed by Regina Vital. Presented by The Actors Shakespeare Project. At the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Centre. Until December 15th. Tickets: $20-$64. 617-241-2200, ActorsShakespeareProject.org/Emma

Don Aucoin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GlobeAucoin.