Mr. Knightly: “You can’t control everything, Emma.”

Emma, flirtatiously: “But isn’t it fun to watch me try?”

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Emma: “Hush, Harriet, don’t trade in anachronisms, it’s cheap and reviewers just loathe it — don’t you, ma’am?”

— Jane Austen’s “Emma,” adapted by Kate Hamill

Jane Austen’s most famous novel adapted into a screwball stage comedy?

It’s a screwy idea and certainly not likely to please former English profs turned critics. Adapter Kate Hamill knew as much and teases us about it within the play itself (albeit saying “sir” and not “ma’am” in the proper script).

Why make Austen’s beloved novel into something like a “Real Bachelorettes of Highbury” and then insist, to boot, that it’s a pro-feminist interpretation? Why, oh why, Kate Hamill? Why, Virginia Stage Company? Have you

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