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The Bedlam theater company’s frolic with Miss Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is absolutely delightful, at a moment’s notice changing from light and frivolous to polite and sensible – with just the right touch of nonsense.

While it is scrupulously true to the plot of the novel, Hamill’s adaptation and Eric Tucker’s direction make this very much a story for our time. It brings the gossips of the tale front and center, unveiling how they revel in other people’s misery, could care less if they ruin lives, and run amok with juicy details.

The basic story (or, rather, stories) are well enough known from the novel as well as the numerous television and film adaptations, but this version by Bedlam (as is their wont) is a real trip like no other. And every single member of this tenfold ensemble is brilliant. As just one example, in the blink of an eye Birnbaum flashes from motherly concern as Mrs. Dashwood to airhead Anne Steele to ancient Mrs. Ferrars with lightning speed in a bravura display.

If we all need a little guidance on the issue of equality, Jane Austen is a good person to consult. A British author who was born in 1775, Austen created strong women who are independent thinkers. As literary creations, they are uncommonly complex for the time in which they were written. Women were the drivers of her plots, and the heroes of her stories. Austen’s legacy is her ability to tell tales of empowerment during a time of social repression.

Bedlam, founded by Nichols and director-actor Eric Tucker around the time Hamill started working on her piece, found it an ideal vehicle for the company’s highly theatrical aesthetic, which features fast-paced adaptations, often performed in repertory with overlapping casts, that seem to cut to the essence of dense texts and make them feel light on their feet.

This nonstop, high-energy romp gets as many laughs from its blocking – no, let’s call it choreography, of both people and objects – as from Kate Hamill’s artful adaptation of Austen’s witty 1811 novel.

The actor/writer’s works, many adapted from Jane Austen, are full of empowered ladies, sometimes played by her.

Janeites, rejoice! Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility… has been delightfully redeemed by a most surprising source: the Bedlam Theatre Company’s radical, experimental, hilarious, lovable and altogether excellent adaptation for the stage.

Bedlam’s production of Sense & Sensibility is unlike any rendition of a Jane Austen novel you’ve ever seen. The cast members twirl about on rolling chaise lounges, dole out an endless array of outrageous facial expressions, and foster a rare level of intimacy between actors and audience… all under the vision of actress and playwright Kate Hamill.

Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility provides the source for the hilarious, entertainment, Sense and Sensibility, in a sassy theatrical production at the Gym at Judson.

“Sense & Sensibility” hits all the right notes.