Review: Three Actors Play 18 Characters in a New Pride & Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen’s novels will forever be sources of stage adaptations. I, for one, am all for it. I welcome fresh attempts to bring the work of one of my all-time favorite writers to the boards. But new productions have a challenge: How do you make your version stand out from the rest?

For me, Kate Hamill is among the best Austen interpreters, showing her deep love and understanding of the texts while taking suitable liberties with them for the sake of theatrical presentation. Her Pride and Prejudice was a fine example of how to avoid the pitfalls of a tedious verbatim retelling while remaining faithful to the spirit of a story that was written for the page rather than the stage.

The new Pride & Prejudice now running at 59E59 Theaters does things more literally. Director Abigail Pickard Price has written a charming three-actor version with Matt Pinches and Sarah Gobran (who also stars) that has been a hit with UK audiences and is now being presented by the Guildford Shakespeare Company at as part of the Brits Off-Broadway series.

Price’s version is faithful to the novel, with enough humorous (and gently tweaked) quotations to satisfy any Janeite. But faithful renderings can lead to dreary interpretations, and that is one of the (occasional) problems here.

Price retains the novel’s main plot points and characters, 18 of which are impressively played by three actors. At the heart of the story is the unwavering mission of Mrs. Bennet (Gobran) to see her five daughters married to the wealthiest bachelors in town. The two eldest, Jane (Groban) and Lizzy (April Hughes) are her focus when Mr. Bingley (Hughes) and his aloof friend Mr. Darcy (a hilarious Luke Barton) arrive on the scene.

But scandal threatens the Bennets when flighty Lydia (played by the company) elopes with the deceptive Mr. Wickham (Barton), and Lizzy finds an enemy to her happiness in the wealthy Lady Catherine (Barton), who refuses to allow her nephew, Mr. Darcy, to entertain romantic notions for Lizzy. How will it all end?

Happily, of course, and Price provides a final scene that will leave you smiling and sighing with satisfaction. Also to her credit is a clearly written script that makes the actors’ frequent character shifts far less confusing than the above summary might suggest. With a change of outfit or a simple bow in the hair, we know which character is which (Neil Irish designed the Regency-influenced set and costumes).

The production runs into problems with its pacing, which starts at a crawl. Gobran’s delivery of Mrs. Bennet’s lines borders on the agonizing with labored affectations and drawn-out vowels that are presumably meant to get laughs (they don’t).

It’s an unfortunate choice that continues in other ways through the first act, with elongated music and dance sequences in between the many scenes. (I wondered if 30 minutes might have been shaved off the two-hour, 30-minute run time if Price had eliminated those interludes.) It doesn’t help that Matt Eaton’s sound design often blares the music almost as loud as the actors’ voices, and Mark Dymock’s yellowish-orange lighting makes the cast look like burgers under a heat lamp.

Fortunately, there’s is a fair amount of humor, mostly in Act 2 and mostly from Barton, who had me laughing out loud at his Lydia and Lady Catherine, as well as at his antics in the Pemberley scene. It’s too bad that Price didn’t camp things up in a similar way elsewhere. The play cries out for it.

Nevertheless, you’ll probably have a good time at this Pride & Prejudice. It won’t go down as my favorite, but it’s an enjoyable enough revisit to Austenland. I wonder what the next adaptation will do.