Hearing Lauren Gunderson speak about Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical novel “Little Women” is to hear the clarity and purpose she possesses in building her adaptation.
Gunderson, recently named the most produced playwright for the third time by American Theatre Magazine, didn’t have to search very far to find blatant connections between the Civil War era that Alcott depicted in her 1868 novel and societal struggles in today’s United States.
“The story is not lace and doilies and sitting comfortably by the fire,” Gunderson said. “They’re at war, their father might not come home and there’s a plague next door that’s killing the community. These are really high stakes, and these girls are growing up in this moment of American division and crisis, the real stress-testing of humanity all around them.”
Gunderson’s “Little Women” is making its second stop in a series of rolling world premieres nationwide. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is producing the play, directed by artistic director Giovanna Sardelli and featuring a who’s who of Bay Area acting talents. The show runs Sept. 24-Oct. 12 in Mountain View.
The novel is a coming-of-age tale about the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. The four go through significant life changes as they navigate their way through the Civil War in 1860s Massachusetts.
On the surface, Gunderson might seem to be a playwright who loves digging into the specific nuances of classics; her Jane Austen-inspired “Christmas at Pemberley” trilogy is one example. But while proper young ladies wearing proper dresses might be the dominant image that comes to mind for this genre, there’s much more immediate motivation that bubbles to the surface.
“It is not a small thing that these girls are up against, and how they manage it is with radical love and radical joy,” Gunderson said. “They live within a radical community of people who are saying, ‘I will not leave your side, know you and celebrate you as you are.’”
Bay Area actor Elissa Beth Stebbins is working on her second Gunderson adaptation, taking on the role of Jo, the second oldest and the boldest of the March sisters. The excitement and challenge of interpreting a strong spirit means that Stebbins is free to explore Jo’s abundance of personality, despite the audience not witnessing much of what Alcott built in her novel.
“There’s something for me around these characters that come from books–that they’re very whole,” Stebbins said. “They often change a lot and are really dynamic, and we get to see them in the books in a lot of different situations. Even though…a lot of that doesn’t make it to the stage, there is all this richness behind it and lots we can lean on to know about our characters.”
When it comes to the modern sensibilities of the story, Gunderson did not have to search far in the book to find parallels between the division that exists in the country. It’s something Stebbins also gravitated toward when revisiting the book, which she read in elementary school.
“One of the things that feels really present for me is the presence of conflict, this sort of constant loss of people and the loss of security,” Stebbins said. “What really has been ringing out for me in this production is the poverty of the March family, and the way they find joy through the pain and difficulty of poverty. It feels so real when we look at the decisions we have to make today about where we spend our money, and how we keep finding joy and passion in a time that’s so tempestuous.”
Gunderson has found many layers of modernity inside the story, but the novel’s bent toward unapologetic feminism paid many dividends. Crafting new sensibilities with classic works continues to be a critical aim of her work.
“There’s a whole patriarchal dismissiveness of women and girls in general, but there is a reason why she calls this group of girls little women,” the playwright says of Alcott’s novel. “it has a lot more backbone of feminism than it might appear. There is a grit to it that is perhaps not immediately recognizable but will be instantly seen when the audience gets into the theater.”
“Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women” runs Sept. 24-Oct. 12 (opening night Sept. 27) at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Tickets are $39-$109 at theatreworks.org.
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2022-23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social.