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Review: Langham Court Theatre serves up playful Pride and Prejudice

What: Pride and Prejudice Where: Langham Court Theatre When: Until Oct. 18 Tickets, info: 250-384-2142 langhamtheatre.
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Langham Court Theatre's production of Pride and Prejudice stars, standing from left, Ellen Law as Kitty, Jennifer Hoener as Mrs. Bennet and Catherine Landry as Lydia. Sitting are Melissa Taylor, left, playing Lizzie, and Danielle Florence as Mary.

What: Pride and Prejudice

Where: Langham Court Theatre

When: Until Oct. 18

Tickets, info: 250-384-2142

langhamtheatre.ca

Rating: Four stars out of five

 

Is there anyone who hasn’t experienced Pride and Prejudice?

Still alive and kicking 200 years after Jane Austen penned her early 19th-century love story, it still resonates. Incarnations include the 1940 screen version starring Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy, the 1995 BBC miniseries that turned Colin Firth into a heartthrob when he inherited this role of a lifetime, and a Bollywood musical, Bride and Prejudice.

However, we’ve never seen it brought to life on stage as briskly, and with such a sense of fun as in Victoria playwright Janet Munsil’s audience-friendly adaptation.

One of the most striking hallmarks of director Judy Treloar’s Langham Court Theatre production is how fresh it all seems, despite our familiarity with its story and Regency-era characters. It’s also worth noting this fast-paced romp sometimes seems like a cross between Downton Abbey and It’s Complicated, as it balances irreverence with adherence to the spirit of the original.

An immediate plus is that Treloar’s fine cast gets right down to it, with Munsil’s winking adaptation sparing us an onslaught of exposition.

It cuts to the chase early, thrusting us into the milieu of a familiar tale whose protagonists are hamstrung by pride and prejudice before inevitably getting their social wakeup call.

It’s hard to imagine Austen devotees taking issue with Munsil’s taut, fun-filled stage adaptation that recounts this period drama’s familiar tale. It revisits the plight of Mr. Bennet, the unprivileged English country gentleman who has no male heirs but five daughters who must be married off to suitable gentlemen to ensure financial and social survival.

While the central focus is on headstrong Lizzie, his second daughter who after much verbal sparring hooks up with the famously wealthy and brooding Mr. Darcy, other potential suitors for her siblings emerge thanks to the machinations of the conniving, social-climbing matriarch Mrs. Bennet.

Class and comic complications mount when wealthy and charming bachelor Charles Bingley shows up, with Mrs. Bennet scheming to ensure daughter Jane captures his affections. Other possible husbands are Darcy’s arch-rival George Wickham, a dashing military man with a gambling problem, and Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman cousin who will inherit Mr. Bennet’s estate if the Bennet sisters don’t marry.

Under Treloar’s sure-handed direction, Pride and Prejudice is a sprightly confection, its gaiety and frivolity matched by clever observations on period social strictures thrown into a modern context.

It helps that Sarah Tradewell, who effectively portrays Jane, is also a fiddler whose live instrumentation nicely telegraphs the musical backdrop. Combined with Sylvia Hosie’s choreography of some home and ballroom dancing sequences, and Merry Hallsor’s colourful period costumes, it effectively evokes the era.

With a large cast of 19, most with authentic accents, there are ample opportunities to shine.

Melissa Taylor leads the brigade as Lizzie, enunciating beautifully and impressively conveying her headstrong character’s alternating exasperation and individualism, even if she occasionally appears to be channelling Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary. While Montgomery Bjornson wouldn’t be mistaken for Firth, he metamorphoses after a hesitant start into a reasonably affecting facsimile.

Although her early “chop chop!” declarations might recall Downton Abbey’s kitchen boss Mrs. Patmore, Jennifer Hoener is amusingly impressive as Mrs. Bennet, the hysterical force of nature. Paul Terry commandingly portrays her beleaguered husband. Danielle Florence and Ellen Law are also effective as bookish, frustrated Mary, and Kitty, a bundle of silliness, respectively. It’s Catherine Landry, perky to a fault, who stands out here, however, with her amusingly flirtatious turn as Lydia, their impulsive, self-absorbed 16-year-old sister.

Other highlights include Chase Hiebert’s scene-stealing hilarity as Collins, who punctuates his appearances with over-the-top bowing; Ian Simms, affable as Bingley; and Elizabeth Whitmarsh, deliciously haughty and self-righteous as Lady Catherine.

Ian Case, a robust presence as wealthy patron Mr. Gardiner, Michael Bell as Wickham and Whitmarsh as Scottish housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds are also noteworthy.

For a play so obsessed with looks, it’s appropriate this production boasts such a handsome, multi-functional set. Caroline Mitic’s tasteful off-white, grey and black rendering of the Bennet household has a large swing-wall allowing it to double as a backdrop for ballroom sequences and an inspired stately mansion visit featuring live actors within large, framed portraits.

mreid@timescolonist.com