Sense and Sensibility: A New Musical – Review
Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate link(s). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sense and Sensibility: A New Musical
Runtime- 2hr 37min
Air date- 2023?
Director- Barbara Gaines
Writers- Paul Gorden
Filming locations- Chicago, Illinois, USA
Where to watch- stream on Tubi or rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video
Starring Sharon Reitkerk as Elinor Dashwood and Megan McGinnis as Marianne Dashwood
A Brief Summary
Sense & Sensibility, now in musical format! See how the Dashwood sisters sing and navigate life through abrupt changes in living and financials. All while their love lives become a complex mess.
Initial thoughts
When I saw that there was a Sense & Sensibility: A New Musical, I immediately expected to experience dread again. Recovering from my last Jane Austen-inspired musical, Pride & Prejudice: A New Musical, I was ready to trudge through it. Luckily, this was a completely different experience.
I actually did enjoy this one. The music was for the most part very pretty and the composition and singing voices were very pleasing to the ears. There was a part where I felt it turning into the likings of Pride & Prejudice Musical when Colonel Brandon ran off with urgent matters, but it did not stay.
The wardrobe was a lot more appropriate to the Regency Era. Though there were some weird puffs on Marianne’s forearm sleeve. Overall I liked the costumes and fits of all the characters.
This musical isn’t fully faithful to the book, as I would expect, but here are some interesting and major changes I saw.
Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret
Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret are completely omitted from this musical. I do wonder if it is because they don’t appear in major and the majority of scenes that it would seem fit to just not put them in at all.
Eliza
This was the weirdest change of all. They changed the name of Colonel Brandon’s first love from Eliza to Lydia. His ward still kept the same name, Eliza. I wonder if they made the name change to separate names to avoid confusion. Also, I wondered why the name Lydia. My best guess is the comparison of Lydia Bennet’s free and loose spirit with Eliza’s wild spirits and affairs. But even so, I do not think that is a just comparison.
Final Thoughts
Despite the few weird changes they made in this musical, I thought it was very endearing and enjoyable. It was very well done, so I was surprised that I found this production done so well, yet for the Pride & Prejudice, fell. I did notice they were both written by the same person. Also, I could not find a precise air date and only found the year on Amazon Prime Video.
Anyway, the most important question of all is would I watch it again? I would say yes, but I would not count on myself to be in any hankering to watch a musical any time soon. That is just me with musicals and nothing to do with this particular musical.
