Review: Pride and Prejudice by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs

Pride and Prejudice at UT's B. Iden Payne Theatre is a beautiful, graceful production. This is a musical text, and not only because of the jigs and reels at the balls sponsored by cheerful Mr. Bingley. Jane Austen's familiar novel about impoverished young ladies and their ultimately successful romances is written largely in dialogue, with cadence, understatement, wit, parry and riposte, quite as if it were a verbal score.

Tom Truss (photo: J. Elissa Marshall)

No wonder it has been so successfully translated to the cinema, again and again, and no wonder all 495 seats in the theatre appeared to be filled on opening night. James Maxwell's adaptation gives us much of that familiar dialogue verbatim and all the familar characters. We enjoy the silly warble of the mother, Mrs. Bennet, played to the hilt by La Tasha Stephens yet without exaggeration; sisters Elizabeth and Jane, debating the merits and manners of the wealthy visitors; Tom Truss as the drily understated father Mr. Bennett, something like a solo oboe; and rich siblings Charles and Caroline Bingley, as aurally glittery as wind chimes. To prove the point we have the exception, Mark Scheibmeir as Mr. Darcy, stiffly competent at dance but quite incapable of sparkle or music.

 

 

Mark Scheibmeier (photo: J. Elissa Marshall)

The composition relies on the rhythms and sounds of those oh-so-English accents, played with impressive verve by all the cast. Coach for voice, text and dialect is Barney Hammond.

Ashley Hayes, Melissa Recalde (ALT photo)

 
 Maxwell's adaptation takes the license of assigning duties of narration to Melissa Recalde as the arch protagonist Miss Elizabeth Bennet. In direct address to the audience, rather as if she were dashing off brief epistles to a friend, she connects the scenes and comments upon the characters. 


This Pride and Prejudice has elegance in speech, in dress, in ceremony and in setting. You'll find no surprises in the story line and no distortions or intrusive modifications. Settle in and enjoy the high adventures of social life in the 19th century English countryside. 

There's not a false note in the piece -- which is just as it should be in polite society, isn't it?

 

Review by Elizabeth Cobbe in the Austin Chronicle, November 19

 

EXTRA

Click to view program of Pride and Prejudice, University of Texas

 

Hits as of 2015 03 01: 1857

Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen, adapted by James Maxwell
University of Texas Theatre & Dance

November 13 - November 23, 2009
B. Iden Payne Theatre
300 East 23rd Street
Austin, TX, 78712