Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
To be young, female and with writerly intentions probably wasn’t easy in American Civil War era nineteenth century Massachusetts. This is partly why Louisa May Alcott’s much adapted semi autobiographical novel was so ahead of its time. Initially published in two parts in 1868 and 1869, Alcott’s rites of passage saga concerning four very different sisters as war rages elsewhere tapped into a radical need for women’s emancipation, literary or otherwise.
A love for Alcott’s story concerning the growing pains of Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth March is palpable at the start of Anne-Marie Casey’s adaptation, directed here by Loveday Ingram. As the girls huddle around Jo’s writing desk at the corner of Ruari Murchison’s tree lined set, this is Jo writing her way into her life. Surrounded by a mix of the natural and domestic worlds and bathed in the corn coloured glow of Mike Robertson’s lighting, it is through the subsequent loves and losses that Jo finds her voice en route to adulthood.
This is brought to life with by a cast led by Grace Molony as Jo, with her siblings played by Jade Kennedy as Meg, Catherine Chalk as the doomed Beth and Imogen Elliot as Amy. As they skirt around each other’s personalities in the carefree first half, it is fascinating to see the roles each sister takes on as their lives are mapped out, either by accident or design.
The largely woman only environment is completed by Honeysuckle Weeks as the girls’ mother and Belinda Lang as a fruity but domineering Aunt March. When assorted gentlemen callers played by Jack Ashton and Cillian Lenaghan come a courting, Jo’s passions are elsewhere. As the second half sees Jo expand her horizons in New York, she becomes a lady of letters and independent woman even as she meets her intellectual equal in Professor Bhaer.
An earlier expanded version of Casey’s script was first performed in Dublin before being slimmed down for a later showing at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. With Ingram taking the reins for this eight-actor version led by Lee Dean and Daniel Schumann’s Faraway Productions, the show retains its inspirational appeal. As Jo comes into her own, there is a lovely moment when she watches the characters she has drawn from her own experience mouth her words. As memory and fiction blur, the storybook the sisters occupy gives them immortality even as it liberates Jo’s imagination in a beauteously elegant getting of wisdom.
The Herald, April 3rd 2025
ends
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