PRIDE AND PREJUDICE* (*sort of) - REVIEW OF PLAY AT CAA THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) is a play with a few well-placed songs by Isobel McArthur after Jane Austen. We can assume some familiarity with Austen’s masterpiece but none with the (*sort of) by McArthur that is now playing at the CAA Theatre in Toronto.

My guess is that seeing the latter may have one of the following effects. You may run home and dig up Austen’s book and start (re)reading it furiously to get past the send-off of the book by McArthur or never get near the novel again. Or you can enjoy the spoof where five women servants play eighteen characters and many episodes of the novel and leave us laughing and astounded by the brilliance of the play.

A few words about. Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of). We start with the five women servants in the Bennett household busily doing their job, for a while. They wear plain white dresses but they don’t intend to stay in 1813 England as they grab microphones and start singing modern songs and use profanities fearlessly and they have us in the palm of their hands.

That is just the beginning. The “servants” transform themselves into most of the characters of the novel with speed and irreverence, and sometimes by donning a bit of different clothing. We are anxious to meet their employers, the Bennett family of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, their five daughters, Darcy and Bingley, the rich suitors or targets for their five daughters. Lady de Bourgh represents the ultimate snob. 

Mr. Bennett, you may recall, does not do much in the novel and in the play, he is represented by the back of an easy chair where he is holding a newspaper. Perfect representation of the paterfamilias.

Leah Jamieson, Dannie Harris, Lucy Gray, 
Megan Louise Wilson and Emmy Stonelake 
in Pride and Prejudice* (*sort-of). Photo Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic.

Dannie Harris gives us a wacky, neurotic, silly Mrs. Bennett who is anxious to get her daughters married off especially Elizabeth, the oldest and brightest of them to the rich, snobbish Darcy. Harris plays both roles with superb versatility. She changes from one role to the next quickly and she is ridiculous one moment and an arrogant, standoffish Darcy the next. 

We have the ridiculous Mr. Collins, a pompous clergyman, who proposes to Elezabeth and is told in un-Austinesque language to to eff off. Leah Jamieson is hilarious and dead-on in the role of the cleric where we see snobbery for the sake of being a snob and a bootlicker of his social superiors with hilarious results. Lady de Bourgh is snobbish and out of this world in her condescension to the lower orders (everybody, that is) and she personifies arrogance and is ridiculously funny.

With five actors going through eighteen roles, I had difficulty tracking who played what part. But the actors, Ruth Brotherton, Christina Gordon, Lucy Gray, Dannie Harris, Leah Jamieson deserve unstinting praise for outstanding work.

Pride and Prejudice*(sort of) was adapted by Isobel McArthur who also directs the production with Simon Harvey. They do stunning work in a high-speed but disciplined performance that does not miss any of the humorous and satirical aspects of the play. The servants do not stick to 1813 but jump to current dates and make current references. McArthur  and Harvey do not miss a beat.

The set by Ana Ines Jabares-Pita features an elegant staircase and well-appointed furnishings that the servants clean but treat irreverently.

The whole enterprise is an astonishing production. To take a masterpiece and turn  it into something as marvelous as the play is an astonishing achievement. And an English touring company comes here for us to see it.
__________________________________________
Pride and Prejudice*(sort of) by Isobel McArthur, directed by Isobel McArthur and Simon Harveyl continues until January 21, 2024, at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com

James Karas is  the Snior Editor, Culture of Thr Greek Press