Pride and Prejudice

 

Jane Austen is beloved in the pantheon of English writers for her gift for social observation and her sly wit. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater brings Pride and Prejudice (perhaps her best-known novel) to the stage in this adaptation by Joe Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan directs a cast of some of the city’s best-known actors in this delightful story of love and social standing during the Regency period of English history.

 

The neighborhood in which the Bennett family resides is thrown into chaos when a young gentleman of good fortune rents a nearby estate. Since it is universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife, Mrs. Bennett immediately begins scheming to get him to marry one of her five daughters; he falls in love with Jane, the oldest. But the story centers around Elizabeth, the next daughter in the Bennett family, and the young gentleman’s equally wealthy and far more haughty friend, Mr. Darcy. These two strong personalities enter into a courtship that has stood the test of time and entered the annals of all-time most-romantic stories. Along the way, there are various plots, misunderstandings, and tragedies.

Austen’s writing is full of wit and innuendo, and Hanreddy and Sullivan’s adaptation respects that. The actors are all equally capable of bringing to life the nuance of Austen’s language, and the subtle supplementation of a raised brow or a wave of a hand. Every single one of them understands and communicates the full richness of their characters’ emotions while maintaining the reserve that is an essential component of Austen’s writing.

Lee Stark as Elizabeth Bennett and Grant Goodman as Fitzwilliam Darcy are excellent. They fight, they tease, they fall in love, and they are absolutely believable throughout. Jonathan Gillard Daly and Laura Gordon are both a bundle of neuroses as Mr. and Mrs. Bennett; Gordon in particular is charming, funny, and just a little cringe-worthy during Mrs. Bennett’s fits of shrill histrionics. Brian Vaughn as the Bennett’s cousin, Mr. Collins, is a ridiculous blend of obsequiousness and pride that takes over every scene he appears in, just as one imagines Mr. Collins would take over any room he entered. Gerard Nugent and Sarah Rutan are quietly agreeable as Jane Bennett and Charles Bingley, and Emily Vitriano is loud, boisterous, and delightfully obnoxious as Lydia Bennett.

Michael Ganio’s scenic design is minimalist, which seems at first an odd choice for a play about the upper-crust of English society. These people live on estates, in mansions. But, with little set decoration, a change of scene can be accomplished by simply moving a chair from here to there, adding or subtracting a vase of flowers, or raising and lowering a chandelier. This simplicity makes set changes easy, which keeps the production moving along at a good pace, without lagging. It also has the added benefit of making the dialog, most of which was taken directly from Jane Austen’s novel, the centerpiece of the show, something it is sure the Jane-ites in attendance appreciated.

Complete information and tickets for this production are available at Footlights online by clicking here.