Jane
Austen has always been a favorite read, even for people who are into horror
(check out “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” a takeoff on the romantic
original with ultraviolent zombie mayhem).
On
the other hand, you may not need any ornamentation of the original to enjoy
Austen’s take on five sisters who are out to land rich guys. If so, you should
be suffused with delight at Pride and
Prejudice, now at Great Lakes Theater. It is a theatrical adaptation by
Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan and directed by Hanreddy, who has directed
five other shows at GLT.
Even
though it comes in at nearly three hours, this is an elegantly streamlined
version of P&P, with the narration from the novel absorbed into dialogue
for the stage. Indeed, the scenery and the scene changes are minimal which
throws all the focus on the actors. And that is particularly good news here.
Portraying
the parents of the grown and almost-grown daughters of the Bennet family are
Andrew May and Carole Healey. May does more with a shrug than most actors
achieve with a soliloquy, and his wincing asides to his daughters and others
are honed with precision. Equally amusing is Healey, who is candid about her
desire to “dispose of” her daughters in marriages to wealthy gents, regardless
of their other qualities.
And,
as you know, pair off they do. The lovely Jane (an elegant Jillian Kates)
eventually hooks up with Mr. Bingley (Daniel Millhouse, who seems as eager and
curious as a slightly nervous meerkat), while sardonic Elizabeth (Laura Welsh
Berg) is pursued, after a fashion, but the stiffly unapproachable Mr. Darcy
(Nick Steen).
Rounding
out the quintet of sisters are Courtney Hausman as too-smart-for-the-room Mary,
Kailey Boyle as flighty Lydia, and Amy Keum as young and impulsive Kitty.
The
groveling Mr. Collins, he of the desperately insincere exclamations, is also after
Liz after he learns Jane is off the market, but Liz is having none of it. As
Collins, Eric Damon Smith has creepy good fun with this cloying character.
The
large cast handles the material with exceptional panache, with only a small
wrinkle or two. In two smaller roles, the usually spot-on Katherine DeBoer
engages in more mugging than is required. (But oddly, Melissa Graves goes
over-the-top as the housekeeper at Pemberley, Mrs. Reynolds and it seems
entirely fitting and quite amusing). And Alex Syiek is wasted in the
microscopic role of Fitzwilliam.
In
any case, this Pride and Prejudice is
a welcome relief from the barrage of coarse language (“horse-face!”) that
currently permeates our culture. In the supremely capable hands of Hanreddy,
this Austen caper is refined, witty, and altogether transporting.
Pride
and Prejudice
Through
November 4 at Great Lakes Theater, Hanna Theatre, 2067 E. 14 St., 216-241-6000,
greatlakestheater.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment