REVIEW: Austen powers heart-warming Christmas romance
This is the time of Jane Austen. We are told that the early 19th Century author sells more books now than she ever did. Just look at the number of stage productions and seemingly unending movies based on her slender output that continue to grace stage and screen. They’ve even turned unfinished novels into movies (Lady Susan in 2016).
Casting about for a “new Christmas show,” American playwright Lauren Gunderson (and her friend Margot Melcon) came up with the idea of combining Austen with the season in something new.
The consequence was Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley which opened in 2016, never played Broadway, but has become an astonishing hit across North America in a series of “rolling world premieres.” The production has now landed at the Citadel Theatre’s Shoctor Stage until Dec. 9.
For patrons whose knowledge of Austen is a bit rusty, Miss Bennet takes place in 1815, two years after the union of the spirited Lizzie Bennet and the stuffy but impossibly handsome Mr. Darcy. It’s Christmas, and the Bennets are visiting Pemberley, Darcy’s ancestral estate. One of the guests is Mary (Mikaela Davies), the bookish, socially awkward maiden sister. If you say you remember Mary from the book you are probably fibbing. She barely appears – in fact, disappears for long sections of the tome. She is occasionally called on to play the pianoforte. Mary’s battling the times. As the unmarried sister with no prospects, she will probably be cast out of the family home when her parents die.
Also present, however, is Arthur de Bourgh (Umed Amin), who is even more withdrawn than Mary. Just down from Oxford, he lives in a world of books and plants. Though Arthur has inherited an estate, he seems lost and quickly yields to social pressure. When the two are first thrown together the result is a very funny scene of awkward and maladroit conversation leading to a gradual attraction.
Good move by playwright Gunderson. The two are fated to be together. Even if they can’t see it, the audience can and are drawn into caring for these two. Much of the rest of the play is a funny, nostalgic look at the times and two societal misfits who find, and then almost lose, a place in it. Add to that the familiarity of the situations which allow us to compare what we remember of earlier productions, and we can marvel how the playwright has cleverly developed themes and characters over time.
Gunderson has also done her research. The play feels so right. The characters are perfectly calibrated projections of the originals, and the playwright has added just enough modern spin (and echoes of contemporary feminist attitudes) to keep Edmonton director Nancy McAlear’s spiffy production decidedly undated.
McAlear’s actors are finely drawn to make the most of their personality quirks. Amin’s Arthur is bookish, bumbling, hapless and a great foil for Davies’ shrewd Mary, who emerges from her maidenly funk – “I struggle to find solace in books and the pianoforte” – to be frank, accessible and wryly amused by the goings on around her. At point, she attacks the keyboard in a deafening take on Beethoven, shouting, “I am not upset. Beethoven’s upset!” Playing various composers of the time, Davies also shows herself to be a pianist of some ability.
The rest of the performers are certainly up to the demands of the play and the eight-person cast are all perfectly suited to their roles. One (obviously British) audience member on the way out, was heard observing, “Well, they certainly got the accents right.” Allison Edwards-Crewe is recognizable as the unquenchable Lizzie who landed Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Emma Houghton is all over the stage as the fizzy, light headed sister, Lydia. Matthew Hulshof ably gives us a substantial Darcy who finds himself playing cupid to save a true love. Emma Laishram and Cameron Kneteman are steady and sympathetic as the Bingleys. Kneteman gets away one of the best double-takes you’re likely to see all season. Gianna Vacirca is the haughty Anne de Bourgh, the soul of respectability who swans about the stage like a ship-of-the-line under full sail.
Enough cannot be said about McAlear’s helming. You can see her fingerprints all over the precise, spare direction and brisk pace. There are directorial touches everywhere, as in the peppy set changes which are all done in character and in a kind of stylized dance. Dana Osborne’s period costumes are eye-filling and her detailed Regency set is downright awesome.
The audience loved it and gave the production the traditional Citadel opening night standing ovation. Perhaps more can be read into the involuntary “Awwww” that escaped from the audience in one scene where the two lovers discover themselves, and the spontaneous burst of applause when they engaged in the most tentative (mounting to passionate) kiss you’ve ever seen on a stage.
Warm-hearted, impeccably produced, funny and tear-inducing, this Christmas you really should join Miss Bennet and all her friends and relatives for Christmas at Pemberley.
Photos by Ian Jackson
