Are the Bennet Girls OK?

With Are the Bennet Girls OK?, Bedlam returns to the work of Jane Austen, having garnered immense acclaim for their world premiere production of Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Sense & Sensibility, which Tucker also directed. In a Critic’s Pick review, Ben Brantley of The New York Times described that production as an “enchantingly athletic take on the perils of Austen-style courtship,” and proclaimed, “No troupe in New York these days rides the storytelling momentum of theater more resourcefully or enthusiastically than Bedlam.” The Wall Street Journal‘s Terry Teachout raved, “Bedlam can make theatrical magic in an empty room. No theater troupe in America is doing more creative classical revivals.”

Emily Breeze, an unapologetically irreverent adapter, frees Pride and Prejudice from bodiced language and mannerisms. She focuses the narrative on the depth, closeness, silliness, dissonance, pettiness—and fierce protectiveness—of the relationships between the Bennet women. Tucker’s production maintains the look and world of regency England as Breeze brings its text and themes acutely up to date—reexamining romances both idealized or simply accepted as givens through centuries of canonization.