Polarity Ensemble Theatre Announces TOM JONES, 3/20-4/29

Polarity Ensemble Theatre, in association with Azusa Productions, presents the Midwest premiere of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, adapted by David Hammond, March 20 – April 29, 2012, directed by Maggie Speer. Polarity Ensemble Theatre is in residence at Wicker Park's Josephinum Academy. The theater is located at 1500 N. Bell Street, Chicago. Previews begin March 20th, with press opening on Thursday, March 22nd and a Gala Premiere Night Friday, March 23. Tickets are $10 for previews, $19 for regular run, and $35 for Gala Premiere Night which includes a post-show reception. Senior discount tickets (age 65 and older) are $15, and student discount tickets are $10 with valid ID. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Seating is general admission. For tickets and more information visit www.petheatre.com or call the box office at 800-838-3006.

Playwright David Hammond has waited patiently for twenty-five years to realize his perfected adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic novel Tom Jones. "I wrote the first version in a great hurry, as a last-minute replacement in the repertory of the now-defunct Valley Shakespeare Festival in California. I arrived to direct a production that had been canceled due to rights issues, so we brainstormed about what to do, and I agreed to adapt Tom Jones."

Luckily for Hammond, Fielding's 18th century novel, The History of Tom Jones, A Founding, was one he knew very well. Mr. Jones' navigation through high- and low-society, with its exploitative streak of bawdiness, was a defining novel of English literature for centuries after publication. Along with War & Peace, it is a story Hammond has read and re-read more than any other work.

In three days, Hammond had written enough pages to begin rehearsals. The speed of the writing, while exhilarating, had also left Hammond feeling the material deserved a more measured approach. "The show was a hit and we did a successful tour, but I knew that some of that first adaptation was smoke-and-mirrors. There were places where I'd patched things together or glided over inconsistencies and missing circumstances, but the arc of the thing, and its spirit, somehow captured Fielding. All that summer, I kept telling myself that I would get back to the script and push it through to real completion." Little did he know it would be decades before he could again find time for Mr. Jones.

With its spring 2012 production of Tom Jones, Polarity Ensemble Theatre of Chicago continues its mission of producing new works and bringing new life to classics. Hammond recalls, "The old script sat in my files until a year ago when, out of the blue, two different theatres called asking about the rights. One of the theatres was Polarity, where Maggie Speer, who was my student at The American Conservatory Theatre thirty years ago, is Managing Director. Maggie called my agent in New York asking about the play. She didn't know at the time that I was the playwright, because I had written that first version, as I wrote everything I did in those days, under a pen-name. Similarly, although Maggie's name rang a distant bell in my mind, I couldn't figure out how I knew her. It was quite a moment when we finally met up by email and identified each other!"

"I asked if they could give me a month to rework the script one final time before sending it. They happily agreed, and I pulled out the script and Fielding's novel. It felt like going home. I had a deliriously happy month working on it. The original structure still held, but I was able to solve things I had avoided the first time around, clear up some loose ends that didn't really match, further define characters, follow through on details of circumstances, and make an altogether more organic and cohesive work out of it."

Hammond also brought into the play more of Fielding's wry humor. The third-person narration of the novel being a challenge, Hammond spent considerable time on retaining the original version's energy while sharpening the dialog and tightening elements of plot. The novel is over three-hundred thousand words (longer than the last Harry Potter novel!), so to create a tighter, stronger, and funnier version than first existed was a call to arms for the experienced playwright.

"I think the trick was to capture the multiple levels of conflict in the story," adds Hammond. "There are so many elements: the personal nature of Tom's and Sophia's journeys, the different but equally colorful worlds of town and country, the contrasts of wealth and poverty, decadent sophistication versus youthful innocence and idealism, society versus the outsider. And there are also levels of morality: are we answerable to some hierarchical code, not only here on earth but in the eyes of heaven? Are human beings basically good or basically evil? Are weaknesses of the flesh forgiven if the heart is basically well-intentioned? Does God view us with a twinkle in his eye if He knows we try our best? And how do we find a way to live productively and not torture ourselves if we take a wrong step? I think Fielding thinks there's good in everything if we take things with an occasional grain of salt."

David Hammond has written adaptations of works by Euripides, Moliere, Beaumarchais, Chekhov, Ostrovsky, Gay, Wedekind, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, as well as several original plays. Hammond has taught on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the Yale School of Drama, and The American Conservatory Theatre Advanced Training Program and is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC-Chapel Hill. He currently teaches for the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard and is Professor of Theatre Studies and Arts Division Chair at Guilford College.

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