Book-It turns timid with well-acted `Pride and Prejudice'
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Theater review
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. Adapted and directed by Marcus Goodwin. Thursday-Sunday through Sept. 24. On the Boards, 100 W. Roy St., Seattle. $18. 206-216-0833.
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The bounty of recent Jane Austen dramatizations can be divided into two main camps. In one, the adaptors are intent on transferring Austen to the stage or screen as literally and "faithfully" as possible.
In the other, there's more of a free hand at work in amplifying Austen's themes, and filtering her early 19th-century tales of British manners and mores through a modern awareness of class and psychology - as recent film versions of "Mansfield Park" and "Persuasion" did so bracingly.
Book-It Repertory Theatre's "Pride and Prejudice" sits squarely in the first camp. In fact, director Marcus Goodwin's three-hour adaptation of the classic novel at On the Boards is so scrupulously faithful to its source material that it treats Austen's classic novel with kid gloves, rather than theatrical verve.
Let it be said that Book-It's well-cast and crisply acted show does offer a thorough introduction to the plot and characters in Austen's sparkling, keenly satirical story of the five, eager-to-be-married Bennet sisters. This alone may satisfy Austen purists and those who'd prefer "hearing" the book to actually reading it.
Lovely Jennifer Sue Johnson projects the sharp intelligence and guileless warmth of the most astute Bennet sister, Elizabeth. And Andrew DeRycke, adopting a rigid bearing and a patrician scowl that finally melts into a fetching smile, is a "capitol" Mr. Darcy - the rich, arrogant hunk Lizzie first despises, then grows to love.
Also shining in the large ensemble are Heather Guiles as dizzy Miss Lydia Bennet and Vincent Delaney as her rakish suitor Mr. Wickham, Laura Ferri ably doubling as the airhead Bennet matriarch and the imperious aristocrat Lady Catherine, Martin Buchanan as an unctuous parson, and Jim Gall as Lizzie's droll, put-upon father and kindred spirit.
Utilizing Book-It's basic story-theater format, "Pride and Prejudice" unfolds on a nearly bare and rather too spacious stage, garnished only with drapes and flooring covered with elegant Regency-style handwriting that might be Austen's. The actors (clad in Chloe Chapin's period costumes) deliver both narrative and dialogue, and mime their tea-sipping and letter-writing.
No argument there. And Goodwin choreographs the many entrances and exits of the eventful story smoothly, along with the contra dances at the balls where much of the action unfolds.
But by preserving too much of the original text, the show often sags under the weight of the classy verbiage, and gets penned-in by its fidelity to every nook and cranny of the plot.
There's hardly any room for music here, or visual imagery, or reflections on what really lies beneath Austen's scintillating comedy: i.e., the essentially unhappy marriage of the elder Bennets, the ruthless snobbery of the upper-upper class, and the desperation of single young women trapped in a society where marriage was destiny.
In its recent version of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" and elsewhere, Book-it has shown itself capable of respecting an author's literary integrity, while taking the creative license to transform prose into imaginative, off-the-page drama. That's not the case with "Pride and Prejudice," which succeeds best as a lengthy staged reading of a Great Book by a crew of able actors.