The Abbey’s Christmas show, which runs from the 22nd November – 25th January, will see Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved Emma brought to life. With previews drawing to a close I met director Claire O’Reilly to discuss her work on the upcoming production of Emma at the Abbey.
When O’Reilly got the call from Caitríona McLaughlin, artistic director at the Abbey, asking if she wanted to direct Emma, she had admittedly never read it. Like many of us, O’Reilly’s first encounter with Emma was the 1995 cult classic Clueless. However, O’Reilly read the script immediately and was drawn to its fun. “There’s loads of momentum in it. I think Kate Hamill’s done an amazing job of really capturing the essence of the characters, but kind of motoring through what is quite a verbose, drawn-out piece of literature. It was just this very lively energy and lots of theatrical potential in the text. So that was the main thing that made me excited. And I was just really excited to work here. I’ve been dying to do that for ages.”
Since reading and re-reading the novel in preparation for the production, she has also come to love Clueless even more, “It is such an amazing adaptation. Watching it again in the context of working on it…it’s kind of genius, how they access certain themes in it. Even the power dynamics and the hierarchies. It’s just like high school, high school politics.”
Talking about how she feels working on an Emma adaptation of her own, O’Reilly confirms she has “thoroughly enjoyed it. O’Reilly’s career has been spent predominantly working on new writing and devising, admitting that is really where her “soul is”. However, working on a story that is already so solid and secure “has been amazing” and a switch-up from her usual more hands-on dramaturgical process as a director.
O’Reilly got hooked on theatre as a child through school plays and “your classic Catholic school Nativities,” and found it “very addictive.” She came to Trinity College Dublin to study Drama and Film, getting involved with DU Players. In O’Reilly’s last year of college she created a show for a devising module which went on to win the Spirit of Fringe award at the Dublin Fringe Festival. Winning this award at Dublin Fringe, which O’Reilly speaks very highly of, meant a small commissioning cost to help create their next show and a guarantee of The Fringe bringing the new show back for a small run. “Suddenly we had to legitimize,” O’Reilly explains, “and that’s where my theatre company, Malaprop, came from.”
Working alongside O’Reilly on this production is another co-founder of Malaprop, Molly O’Cathain, the set designer for Emma. O’Reilly describes the fun of working with O’Cathain as one of her favourite parts of the production, with this piece “very well suited to how we both play.” Other highlights of the rehearsal process for O’Reilly have been working with movement director Philip Conanton and the amazing cast.
The Abbey’s original promotion for Emma described it as “Emma for the Brat-Bridgerton Era.” It has continued such advertising on their instagram, describing Jane Fairfax as “that girl.” When talking about how that transfers to the stage O’Reilly clarifies, “anybody coming, hoping to see like Brat on stage will be disappointed. Like Troye Sivan is not in a pair of hot pants.” However, the production is scored by a hyperpop soundtrack, on which Charli XCX makes a brief appearance. But like hyperpop, this production dials the saturation up. O’Reilly describes the show’s aesthetic as a collaboration between then and now but when it comes to the characters, she reassures Austen fans that “the essence of the characters are really maintained, and we’ve worked to make them as clear and as authentic as possible.”
Reflecting on the production now previews have started, O’Reilly is feeling good.
This is O’Reilly’s first “big Christmas show” which strays from the “queer, fringe work” she normally makes. “It has been really fun to watch the audiences enjoying it and it’s just nice to do a comedy at Christmas where people are having fun.”
To finish off the interview I left O’Reilly with the hard hitting journalism question that is, Snog, Marry, Kill: George Knightley, Jane Fairfax and Robert Martin?
“I mean, you’d have to marry Knightley, he’s solid as a rock. Mr Martin, in our adaptation, we don’t get to learn a lot about his interior world. To no fault of the actor, it’s just, he’s a non-speaking role. So that means I would probably f*ck him. And then what was the other one? Kill Jane Fairfax? Oh, no, no, no, sorry, no. I would f*ck Jane Fairfax and kill Robert Morton. Okay, yeah.”
Emma will run until the 25th January. Tickets can be purchased on the Abbey’s website starting at €15.
