A Noble Idea

[Spoiler Alert, for sure!]

Presenting Miss Emma Woodhouse! She is a proud, snobby and grating character who cares for those closest to her, and cares only for herself even more. Lovely, isn't she? Well, whatever one may think of her character, there is some redeeming about her: her development.

Emma was written by Jane Austen and can be classified as a bildungsroman for the development of the protagonist. She is witty and clever, but naïve and foolish. She is a matchmaker and a snob. Yet she hold those closest to her in high regard, particularly her love interest - Mr. Knightley. Her friendship to Harriet Smith proves "a most unfortunate one" when she fails to not only understand with whom Harriet's affections lie, but as she fails to understand that one of these men (whom she convinced Harriet to fall in love with) pronounces his love to Emma herself.

Arguably, the woman who raised her and governess (Mrs. Weston) and her beloved father (Mr. Woodhouse) are the villains in this story for encouraging such behavior to continue. Well, at least that's my theory!

However, Emma, though having many errant ideas and actions, seems to have a quality that I believe noble: she is quick to feel remorse which leads her to grow in so many ways. She learns when she has spoken too soon, when she has wronged those whom she has loved, and she learns to love those closest to her even more. This quality is one of the things I love about her most. In the span of two hours, in the length of two-act play, in the 30-something scene changes we were to do for the entirety of the play, you see her development into a young woman who finally learns to love.

A learning experience

Being apart of my first two-act play was perhaps one of the greatest experiences of my life: that is no exaggeration. Let me tell you - there is nothing that I have dreamed of more. There are of course exceptions that I must make as a Christian. But anyone who knows me, knows my passion for theatre. This semester has definitely been a difficult one, presenting many challenges, the play was a challenge. But it was one of my greatest joys.

Witnessing the development of your character, developing a love of that character, watching everyone else act as their character and seeing them mold into that role beautifully is a priceless experience. I have loved laughing with people: doing dances on stage that certainly did not fit the time period or attempting to do "Posh English" dialogue in a Southern accent with my partner in crime Noah. I have loved growing with people: acting alongside Emma as my friend "Harriet Smith", or watching Erik memorize all his lines for the play way before I ever did, or Paige getting excited for strawberry time. I even appreciated crying together: Emma checking up on me after a rough rehearsal, times of frustration that resulted in unity, having deep discussion unrelated to the play that allowed us to think of what was truly important.

These are memories I will always carry with me.

There are memories even from doing the play. The final dress rehearsal/preview night where a bunch of photographers from CIU freaked us out. The opening night, where the audience was so interactive. That night, I also unintentionally "worked with" the playwright of Emma and improvised my own dialogue to a scene (someone had missed their cue to come in) and it sort of went like this:

Emma: Oh, its such a beautiful day outside...[long pause]...I wonder what I shall do today...[long pause. sigh]...maybe I should go outside...[long pause. sigh]...the flowers are growing...[long pause. sigh]...well, maybe I should find someone to be better acquainted with...[walk off stage. end scene].

Needless to say, I was a little scared. It actually reminded me of a time in rehearsal where I had to improvise on stage and I was saying "Oh, its such a beautiful day outside. The birds are singing. The "moos" are "cowing"." We laughed so hard. Another great thing about that night was when Joseph (who played Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father), missed his cue to come in, so after a sad scene I start weeping for "Papa" calling for him to come to comfort me. Secretly, I was just hoping that Joseph would run onto stage. Eventually, he did, but it made for a good crying scene in the play!

Saturday night, our teapot broke, just as one of the stage hands was preparing for the next scene. The whole audience heard this, of course, and so we just had to run with it. At the end, my father drinks a cup a tea, and the scene is supposed to end wit him saying "Emma, shall we get a fresh cup of tea? This one is far too cold." Well, we hadn't made reference to the broken teapot, so I just looked to the teapot, pointed and said "We can't" and started crying. The audience cracked up.

Saturday had much tragedy for many members of the cast, and many of us had no clue how the show would go that evening. Tragedy unites. And as such, I think we had our greatest show that Saturday night.

It helped that the Mom of Zay (our actor for Mr. Elton) was in hysterics during the carriage scene where he professes his love to me. It took everything in him not to break character. Even better was when she yelled "just say it" when Knightly pauses before professing his love to me. Oh, the tears were flowing and the joy was abounding on the day I had seen so many experience unimaginable pain.

Sunday had less of an audience, but no doubt was still a good show. But it was our last, and that was sad. We made our final bows, had photos done, gave our thanks to the director and cleaned up the stage we had grown fond of that weekend. Indeed, that we had learned to love over the course of this semester.

Playing Emma

If I am being honest, playing the lead role in your first two-act play is hard. Besides walking alone at night practicing my lines (and being thought of as crazy for seemingly talking to myself), there is that knowledge of impending doom. Yes, I am joking. But balance has always been a struggle with someone who works hard in school.

But playing Emma was amazing because I realized how much I was, ashamedly, like her. I hope I am not as snobby and proud and arrogant - though I am sure that by suggesting that, I am just as stuck-up. But how she relates to those she loves is similar. She love them, but she is also purposeful. There is always a reason for why she does what she does, especially in how she relates to people. She is also extroverted in many ways. She is judgmental but does not always express her thoughts. She is very inward thinking, and outward working. She wants to help, but it is not always helpful.

Sometimes, I think I found my greatest flaws most clearly represented in the character Emma.

One of my friends, who shares my Myers-Briggs personality type ENFJ said that Emma is the same, and it seems self-evident to me. And now I have no wonder why I related so strongly to Emma. She is a lot like me. And I am ashamed to say such.

But there is something about playing a character who you don't like. It makes you examine yourself and your own behaviors. Emma does have many redeeming characteristics, especially towards the end of the play. So there are two things that I have realized:

1. Acting in a play is a growing experience through the sheer amount of work you do

2. Acting as a character in a play is a growing experience because you learn from your character's mistakes

To learn from last weekend

So I hope that, in the end, I will remember this play as growth in both ways. I hope I will have more time to reflect on my character. And, as one of my friends Sarah said, I hope that in performing arts I may be able to display excellence, to show love to my cast, but ultimately, first and foremost give all the glory to God. I truly pray that this was the case this past weekend.

But if it was not, I have learnt that, like Emma, I am to be constantly learning. I have learnt that I must allow the Holy Spirit to continually work in my life to change me to that image of Christ. And one day, like the final scenes where Emma and Knightly finally confess their love, and get married, I will be united to Christ after being made holy through him. I will stand before my Father in Heaven.

Emma makes a apology to Miss Bates in the play, after saying something quite cruel. As Miss Bates refuses to accept any apology (because she purely does not believe Emma must offer one) she comments on how Jane Fairfax, her niece, will be well taken care of when she moves away. In that moment, we notice that Miss Bates has an optimism that Emma has never fully possessed. She is always super contented. There is a striking difference between the two characters, and as such Emma begins to change greatly.

Emma tells Miss Bates that her optimistic comment is a "very noble idea".

I suppose this is what I take back from the play. From one such noble idea, I believe she greatly changes. She notices everything that she has ever found bad in this one character has been flipped upside down.

I hope to look back to this play as a noble idea that my whole perspective changes. I hope that everything I have learnt from the cast, the crew and the characters will help me to change myself. So from this noble idea, I ask the Holy Spirit to continually change me and mold me into the person he wants me to be.

Because isn't every noble idea in life meant to change us?