Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: The New Musical

(Rochester's Eastman Theatre, 21 October 2008)

The Orchestra, the Jane Austen, and her characters mingle on the stage as they re-create a story of romantic misunderstanding with a happy ending. A touch of honesty and confidence is added to the production by the actors who carry and peep into black folders containing the dialogue. The characters need little introduction and there is not much of it in the play---or at any rate not much compared to the steady development of the characters in the book.

The forte of the production is not dramatic acting but rather the musical numbers. The numbers get better as the play progresses, but there is no tune and no refrain that linger in one's memory after the curtain drops. (In this respect, the score resembles a typical opera.) The portrayal of the main characters (but not the musical score) is visibly inspired by the film Pride and Prejudice (2005).

The script would have benefited from a more-than-sketchy development of Jane Austen's character. Ideally, the play would have three stories running in parallel. In one story, Jane Austen contemplates rewriting the novel as she re-evaluates it in the light of her life's experiences. Thus, the second story line is the plot in Pride and Prejudice. The third story line is Jane Austen's memories of her own encounters with men that have shaped views on romantic love and the writing of the Pride and Prejudice. Does Jane Austen identify herself more with Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Bennett? Was Mr Darcy's character a man in her life or was he the man who never was? Or, perhaps, Darcy's character corresponds most closely to Jane Austen's self?

This appears to be solid if raw production; it can make it to the Broadway.