Kitty?
What has happened to Kitty???
In this adaptation of Jane Austen’s famous novel, the Bennet’s fourth daughter is utterly, inexplicably, and unjustly erased. I was mortified!!!
Of course, I’m parodying the pedantry of a certain species of Janeite, worshipers of Austen who are horrified whenever this sacred text doesn’t receive the fidelity and respect they feel it deserves.
(However, to be honest, I did feel the absence of the Gardiners. As models of a mature, successful romance, their very existence assures our heroine Elizabeth Bennet that her vision of true love is not just a naïve illusion.)
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice attracts pedantry because it’s a foundational text of modern romance. The extraordinary number of film and stage adaptations attests to that. But when I say foundational, I don’t mean merely in terms of the literary genre of romance – I mean of the experience itself. Lizzy Bennet is determined to marry only someone she loves. And with love defined as a heady mix of desire, admiration, respect and an unwavering belief in equality, Lizzy’s hopes encapsulate the romantic aspirations of virtually every young modern.
On one level, adaptations of the novel aren’t tricky: Austen is essentially a dramatic writer. (Though there is the issue of that famously ironic narrative voice; do you simply give it to Elizabeth? If so, how do you present the heroine’s emotional and moral growth?)
Directed by Emma Canalese, Kate Hamill’s adaptation captures all the key dramatic moments and, if an old, sentimental reviewer’s tears are worth anything, the heart of this piece beats strongly.
However, both in script and performance style, this production juxtaposes the drawing room dramedy of manners of the original text with a wacky theatricality. Sometimes, the deliberate double entendres and the unconventional casting make it feel as though the original is being parodied, or at least not being trusted to engage an audience. Several characters are cast against gender, which adds enormously to the playfulness but not much to the truthfulness. (This is theatre of audacity rather than of authenticity.) Some bold doublings ramp up the silliness, and won’t fail to get a laugh from most audiences. The major challenge is the relative homogeneity of the ages of the cast. Some of the representations of the older characters lack subtlety, and the snap is taken out of the original text’s social bite: Age often has an agenda it imposes on Youth, and the manipulation this entails is partly hidden if the generations are blurred.
Several of the characterisations might disappoint small-minded Janeites. Compared with more conventional adaptations: Darcy (Idam Sondhi) is more socially awkward, and Lizzy (Abbey Morgan) more attitude than sparkle (this Lizzy rejects not only marriage without love but marriage in general – which somewhat alters the impact of the final scenes); Jane (Lucy Lock) is less gentle; Mr Bennet (Steve Corner) is louder, and ultimately closer in characterisation to Mrs Bennet (AJ Evans) – who dominates the action more than she does in the novel; Mary also gets far more stage time and is presented as a mistreated neurotic; Bingley is reduced to a joke. (Bingley and Mary are doubled by Victoria Abbott, who displays extraordinary comic talent.)
But I’m not a pedantic Janeite; did these characterisations disappointment me? All roles are played with an exciting committed energy. (To make a hasty definitive judgement about a work whose main theme is the danger of hasty definitive judgements takes either less self-awareness or more courage than I currently command – which probably makes me fatally unsuited to theatre criticism.)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that no reviewer with literary pretensions can write about Pride and Prejudice without alluding to its famous first line. (So I can tick that off.) What is a little less commonly acknowledged is that all foundational myths must be reinvented, for that’s how they’ll find new audiences – and keep the old ones alive.
Paul Gilchrist
Pride and Prejudice adapted by Kate Hamill
Presented by The Artist Experiment & Dream Plane Productions
At Old Fitz until 8 Feb
Image by Phil Erbacher
Theatre Red 