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First presented for a short run in repertory in 2014, this enchanting romp of a play has returned on its own, with a few adjustments, but with its buoyant spirits, cunning stagecraft and enlivening insights intact.

Young playwright Kate Hamill is the best thing to happen to Jane Austen since Colin Firth. Her wonderfully witty and whimsical adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are the best stage adaptations of Austen’s work to date.

Director Tucker paces this and all of Elinor and Marianne’s challenges so sharply that the cycle of disturbing compromises and concessions that they confront in their quest for financial security and social standing becomes a hauntingly arresting phenomenon.

Bedlam’s minimalist staging demonstrates the power of live theater to cast a spell through acting, words, sound and spectacle, with the audience as knowing, complicit partner.

Under the direction of Eric Tucker, this gifted and energetic troupe manages to turn a 200 year old novel into a vibrant romp that keeps 21st century audiences engaged and in stitches. It is a fun evening at the theater.

All of the pieces – and some of them are quite odd and incongruent – come together in Bedlam’s Sense & Sensibility to create a marvelous vision of becoming one.

A beautifully staged and choreographed takeoff, by New York’s innovative Bedlam theatre company, on the early Jane Austen novel about two sisters navigating the seas of love.

Reading the novels of Jane Austen and seeing the characters in the Hamill-Tucker adaptation come to life onstage confirm how little human nature has changed over the course of 150 years or so, even if the methods of communication have allowed rumor, innuendo, and false news to spread further and faster.

Bedlam is deadly serious about performing quality theater, and equally serious about having fun at the same time. Those two qualities – and the talents of the cast, director Tucker and playwright Hamill – have breathed new theatrical life into classic pieces of literature, made them more accessible, and brought in new audiences to be delighted by them.

Although uproariously funny at times, the material is never played strictly for laughs, and the scenes where Elinor and Marianne have their hopes dashed are still painfully touching.

More than a gimmick, Bedlam’s free-wheeling production adds a joyous energy to Austen’s tale of love and marriage, while avoiding the fussy Masterpiece Theatre trappings that usually accompany Austen.

For those who have no prior history with either the Austen novel or a film version, Director Eric Tucker and Bedlam’s production is accessible to any and all, rolling out the story in their inimitable style.