The reason Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is so popular and enduring is because it is so well written, each character has depth and vitality and its biting humour lampoons human love and folly. As such, it has inspired many imitations and a slew of films, television shows, and of course theatre productions each with its own take on the story.
One such re-imaging is by American playwright Kate Hamill and Foolish Wit Theatre have brought it to Auckland’s Pumphouse Theatre for a short season this month.
Hamill’s version follows the main plot and themes of the original but it’s been shaken up and despite still evoking the Regency era, the play has a distinctly modern sensibility. The Bennet’s have an electronic door bell, there is a microphone next to a very 20th century looking grand piano and, spoiler alert, a mirror ball from a disco makes an appearance.
The script is replete with the type of sexual innuendo which would have had many a society damsel of the early 1800s rushing to find their smelling salts. The story has also been streamlined and along the way many of the people from the book have vanished. There is no sister Kitty and the Bennet family’s Aunt and Uncle Gardner never come into the story. Miss Darcy is mentioned but we never see her and Darcy’s cousin Colonel FitzWilliam is also missing in action.
But, in a clever move the usually unspeaking Anne de Bourgh (Āria Harrison-Sparke) definitely has a voice and a somewhat psychotic and predatory nature. She is dressed in white, there is a bandage circling her face from chin to hairline and a plaster across the bridge of her nose. We don’t know what has happened to her, perhaps she’s been involved in a carriage crash or maybe she’s just clumsy. It isn’t a large part, but Harrison-Sparke ensures it is memorable and funny.
Elizabeth Bennet (Jack Frances Corte) is of course the central figure and in this version she is perhaps a little more unsure of herself than the Lizzie we’ve seen depicted so many times. Corte ably manages to convey Elizabeth’s contradictions including her wit and vivaciousness as well as a subtle vulnerability. Her’s is a much funnier and complex leading lady.
The family matriarch Mrs Bennet (Steph Curtis) is, as ever, the family fool – inconsistent, histrionic, and self-indulgent. Curtis clearly got the memo that this version of Pride and Prejudice is a satire bordering on farce and she played the role with gusto. Her version of Mrs Bennet was delightfully unhinged and hilarious.
Overall the entire cast brought together a very engaging set of characters but I did get a sense that one or two hadn’t quite worked out their character’s vibe in this re-imagined Austen world and didn’t take full advantage of the humour in the script.
Having said that, this Pride and Prejudice is a clever reinterpretation of a classic beloved story and is delightful, whimsical and very funny.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
13-17 November 2024
The Pumphouse Theatre – Auckland
