Sense and Sensibility

Nevermind about using your turntable

Did my Jane Austen-loving sister get to see the Kate Hamill adaptation of Sense and Sensibility at the Guthrie? She and her husband came to take care of my kids while I worked on a different show there. Her architect husband was happy to stroll around the Guthrie’s cantilevered fanciness and Minneapolis’s manufacturing ruins encased in giant glass boxes. My sister was thrilled to have the visit coincide with the state fair — she bought the all-you-can-drink milk cup. Outside our window you could see the new Vikings stadium getting finished up, and then hear the roars of the crowd for the first game.

All of us, my family, the director, the playwright, were dazzled by the Guthrie and Minneapolis that fall. The Guthrie building is state-funded, beautiful and huge. The costume shop has enormous windows and a small army of stitchers sitting behind whirring machines. I had an assistant to drive me around town, but I found the whole city so beautiful and walkable that I forewent the chauffe…