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A Red-Letter Production; Hip New Twists Do Justice to Hawthorne's 'Scarlet' Classic

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 20050216
Author:Tricia Olszewski

The "A" is still exquisite, Hester Prynne is still proud, and Pearl is still a little girl with a big personality. In playwright Phyllis Nagy's adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," however, Pearl isn't as little as you'd expect. Nagy's reworking of the 1850 novel strips Hawthorne's language and streamlines his story. But the playwright's biggest twist is putting the impish love child center stage -- fully grown and narrating the events following her mother's imprisonment for adultery.

This "Scarlet Letter" calls for an adult actress to play Pearl even in flashbacks. It's ...

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