Friday February 14, 2025
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Review

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

By Diana Simmonds
January 18 2025

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, The Artist Experiment & Dream Plane Productions at the Old Fitz, 14 January-8 February 2025. Photography by Phil Erbacher

American playwright and actress Kate Hamill wrote this adaptation of Jane Austen’s most loved novel Pride and Prejudice in 2017. Hamill starred in its New York off-Broadway season as Lizzie Bennet after already scoring a popular success with her version of Sense and Sensibility.

Like so many adaptations of adored classics, her saucy P&P had its detractors, but many more loved its irreverent take on Regency manners. It will probably be the same for this colourfully raucous production from a pair of indie companies now doing their rumbustious thing at the Old Fitz.

Hamill is mainly faithful to the novel and wisely retains the best of Austen’s dialogue. And that’s the thing, for anyone not familiar with the book – or the numerous TV and film iterations – there’s no messing with the Bennet sisters and their misadventures in the meat market otherwise known as marriage.

Some might raise their eyebrows at the casting – Steve Corner is a splendid Mr Bennet and a creditable Charlotte Lucas, Dylan O’Connor is a dashing Mr Wickham and snooty Miss Bingley, Lucy Lock is a swan-necked lovely Jane as well as an odious Anne De Bourgh, Victoria Abbott is a devoted Mr Bingley as well as a creditable Mary; Mym Kwa is an eccentric Lydia and heavily draped Lady Catherine. But, as appropriate costumes are whipped on and off, after a few minutes, one’s eyebrows should return to their normal placement.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

The energetic company is confident in the many swaps and director/choreographer Emma Canalese manages the complex transitions and delicious dance sequences – 21st- and 19th-century style – with ease. Where things go awry is with the tricky presence of Mrs Bennet. The matriarch can be seen as a figure of fun as her nerves and incessant chatter get the better of her and her long-suffering family. She is not a pantomime dame, however, and if played at the outer edge of farce, it’s essential that she remain grounded and plausible.

As the mother who will see her daughters profitably wed and save them all from future penury, AJ Evans makes possibly the worst attempt at broad comedy and farce since God was a girl. His selfish, self-indulgent, shrieking, capering and bellowing undermine all else in the first half. (At times, those in close proximity seem to bellow in self-defence.) It’s only Mrs Bennet’s relative absence in the second half that saves the night from disaster.

In contrast, Abbey Morgan is a sparkling, spiky, and funny Lizzie Bennet, and as her proud and prejudiced Darcy, Idam Sondhi is properly taciturn and brooding. These two, with Steve Corner’s ever-amiable Mr Bennet, anchor the show and are its centre of dramatic and comedic truth when all else goes haywire.

There’s also some shudder-making weirdness in Dylan O’Connor’s take on the oleaginous Reverend Collins, the cousin who will inherit on Mr Bennet’s death. For reasons best known to who knows who, instead of giving a politely proffered female hand a quick peck, he applies a long, wet lick of his tongue. It’s a bizarre gesture that would barely be acceptable from a Labrador. O’Connor also chooses to have Rev Collins pronounce “De Bourgh” as if about to vomit. This time it’s what a cat might do when ridding itself of a fur ball, but in this instance, it’s without purpose and Is. Not. Funny.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Nevertheless, on a comically ratty set and in equally post-Bridgerton colourful not-quite-right costumes by Holly Jane-Cohle, and slickly lit by Julianna Stankiewicz, this Pride and Prejudice is saved by the majority of its committed cast; and the second half wherein there’s real heart and understanding of what it’s all about. Music director Osibi Akerejola adds to the eventual success, as does dialect coach Felicity Jurd.

If Mrs Bennet can be slipped a strong sedative before curtain up each evening, or even be persuaded to be in the same play as the others, it could only be for the greater good. Meanwhile, if you love the story of Lizzie and Mr Darcy and their exhausting families, by the end you’ll feel you’ve had your money’s worth.

 

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