Review: A Pride and Prejudice Like You’ve Never Seen Before in Are the Bennet Girls OK?

Do we really need another Pride and Prejudice adaptation? After seeing Are the Bennet Girls OK? at the West End Theatre, I have to answer yes. Playwright Emily Breeze digs deep into the flaws of Austen’s characters and unearths new perspectives on the ones we vilify while providing tons of laughs. The script takes enormous liberties with the text (don’t expect a story that is faithful to the book), but it springboards off the novel to look at the characters’ relationships and societal pressures using modern dialogue (and a few f-bombs).

Elizabeth Bennet (Elyse Steingold) is a feisty young woman who only wants to hang out with her BFF Charlotte (Deychen Volino-Gyetsa), bicker with her sisters Mary (Masha Breeze), Kitty (Violeta Picayo), and Lydia (Caroline Grogan), and survive the embarrassment caused by her mother Mrs. Bennet (Zuzanna Szadkowski). The last thing she wants to do is to get married. But when her sister Jane (Shayvawn Webster) is rejected by Mr. Bingley (Edoardo Benzoni, who plays all the male characters), her mother pressures her to find a man. Their survival depends on it, since their house and possessions will be inherited by a distant cousin, Mr. Collins, when her husband dies.

If you’re wondering where Mr. Darcy is in all this, know that he’s barely on the radar for most of this romp. Instead, Breeze focuses on the relationships between the sisters, their mother, and their friends. Elizabeth’s flaws in particular are more obvious than in other interpretations. Steingold does a remarkable job capturing her youthful spontaneity, self-centeredness, and ego, making her character journey especially satisfying.

Similarly, Szadkowski fully embodies Mrs. Bennet, dispensing scathing zingers toward her daughters one minute and showing relatable warmth, anxiety, and despair the next. Breeze gives Mrs. Bennet deep emotional beats, and Szadkowski hits them perfectly. Another standout performance comes from Benzoni, who portrays each of the men with precision and gets laughs with all of them.

But it’s Masha Breeze (Emily’s sister) as Mary who’s the steals the show, making Pride and Prejudice’s dourest sister into its most loveable. She wrings every bit of humor out of the jokes and breaks hearts at the same time. Some of her shining moments are at the piano, where she performs intentionally bad songs (written by her and Emily). Breeze’s performances are intentionally torturous, but they are some of the most captivating moments of the show.

The only characterization that doesn’t totally sit right is that of Mr. Collins, who is portrayed as being on the spectrum. At times, it seems we’re meant to take this as a sympathetic interpretation of the original character’s awkwardness, but at other times it feels on the verge of making fun of his autism—a little cringe in a production that is otherwise big-hearted and benevolent. I was hoping for a scene where he gets to share some of his inner life, but unfortunately it never comes.

Some production aspects worked better than others. Period costumes by Mariah Anzaldo Hale are effective, particularly the various jackets that Benzoni wears to portray the men. Eric Tucker’s direction is serviceable, but his sound design doesn’t add much. John McDermott’s weathered set design of “genteel poverty” leans a little too far into the “poverty.”

But even with these uneven elements, the final emotional beats land hard, and it’s impossible not to get swept away by the celebration. So are the Bennet girls OK? Yes, they are more than OK. Everyone from Janeites to newbies should check them out.