"The Age of Innocence" at the Old Globe Theatre

Shereen Ahmed and Callum Adams in "The Age of Innocence."                                      Photo by Jim Cox

            I wish I’d had a narrator when I had to read Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” back in college. Especially one like Eva Kaminsky, who in the Old Globe’s production of Karen Zacarias’ adaptation of the 1920 novel not only speeds up the slow-thawing story but provides much needed wit, snark and commentary to otherwise eminently sober proceedings.
            As expected, this staging look absolutely fabulous, from Susan E. Mickey’s bustled gowns, flamboyant hats and pristinely pressed suits, to timely and emotive lighting by Lee Fiskness, to the stunning chandelier that hovers over the “Gilded Age” upper-crust society digs of the 1870s.
            The staging is visually inspired as well. There are few props. Entrances and exits occur in graceful, seeming-slow motion like the painterly figures of the living canvas of “Sunday in the Park with George.” It’s as sedate as a tasteful conversation around a high-society dinner table.
            “The Age of Innocence,” which won Wharton a Pulitzer Prize – she was the first woman to do so – is a well-known and well-worn tale, popularly adapted before for the stage, for television and for film. Little wonder. As a foredoomed love triangle narrative it’s probably without peer, presuming one’s able to work up genuine empathy for people as privileged and pampered as those in and around the triangle.
            Newland Archer’s (Callum Adams) betrothal to May Welland (Delphi Borich) is all but preordained, but when May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Shereen Ahmad), appears on the scene, having fled her cad of a husband in Europe, Archer’s head is quickly turned and his heart’s desire redirected. There are various complications around this, mostly having to do with the snobbishness and determination to protect stature of the family and acquaintances around these three, but the May/Archer/Ellen entanglement supersedes all.
            There’s nothing furtive here. The nervous, stammering Archer is fooling no one about where his affections lie. May, though appearing to be passive, not too bright and even saintly, knows the score sooner than anyone expects. Ellen feels the oppression of the elitist tsk-tskers around her, but she knows she’s the brightest star in the society-verse.
            What Wharton was saying in 1920 about social prejudice and the oppression of women was important and very much with the changing times (women won the right to vote that same year), and this aspect of the ironically titled “The Age of Innocence” should not be dismissed lightly. Regardless of whether Ellen Olenska chose to live her life independently of those who judged her (or loved her) because she was asserting her self-determination or sparing her cousin’s feelings, she is a worthy literary heroine.
            If this is starting to sound more like a book review than a theater review, mea culpa. But “The Age of Innocence” the novel has more heft than does this new production at the Globe.
            In Martin Scorsese’s 1983 film adaptation, Joanne Woodward provided narration, mirroring Wharton’s observational storytelling in the novel. In the Globe’s world-premiere staging, Kaminsky, wearing contemporary clothes, puts much of the lovers’ foibles and machinations into sharp perspective. At times she’s telling us things that we can see on stage, but often she’s enlightening us about what we don’t see but should.
            Chay Yew, a superior director (the Globe’s likable “Dishwater Dreams” last year, La Jolla Playhouse’s wonderful “Cambodian Rock Band” in 2019), demonstrates his respect for the original material here and his “Innocence” cast is studied and dignified. Ahmed commands every scene she inhabits, even without speaking -- as the captivating but troubled Count Olenska should.
            I know a few people who saw “The Age of Innocence” on Valentine’s Day, the evening of its last preview. For them, the lingering moment when Archer and the Countess silently share a carriage with their unspoken longing and torture between them must have seemed like romance at its at-once most beautiful and painful.
             “The Age of Innocence” is no swooning valentine, though -- nor is it innocent. The realities that keep lovers apart may shift and change as the decades go by but they persist in their power to cause loneliness, whether in an elegant salon full of swells or in an empty bedroom.
            “The Age of Innocence” runs through March 10 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.