More farce than drawing-room comedy, WTT’s Austen adaptation tickles

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES  | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

Truth be told, critics can grow weary of reviewing shows based on the same source material over and over. There’s only so much Shakespeare, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Nutcracker and Moliere the human brain can withstand in a lifetime.

Among those over-exposed items in the public domain is surely Jane Austen — a masterful constructor of smartly-observed social comedies in novel form that playwrights, screenwriters and librettists have exhausted for two centuries. (This year was the 200th anniversary of her death at age 41.) She only turned out six novels plus some short stories, but even Emma became Clueless, and Pride & Prejudice became Bridget Jones’ Diary (book, movie and sequels!). Just how much Regency era social satire is a third millennium curmudgeon expected to endure?

The correct answer appears to be, “At least one more.” For Kate Hamill’s clever and fast-paced adaptation by Austen’s signature opus, Pride & Prejudice, now at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, is a kind of exception-that-proves-the-rule that ubiquity is not a vice when accompanied by flourishes of great style.

It matters, I suppose, that the source material is so familiar. A play is a much nimbler medium than a novel, but one constrained by its scenes and casting limitations. A passing knowledge of the plot points — the estrogen-heavy Bennet family (led by Bob Hess and Wendy Welsh) have been saddled with four unmarried daughters and no assets except an estate that will pass to a cousin upon Mr. Bennet’s death — are trying to find marriageable material. Jane (Kate Paulsen) is the eldest beauty and prize filly in the pony show of bucolic courtship. Younger Lizzy (Jenny Ledel) is defiantly anti-marriage, embracing her plainness and affinity for reading over quadrilles and small-talk. Onto the estate appears Mr. Darcy (John Michael Marrs), a priggish but fabulously wealthy bachelor who seems to have as much disdain for Lizzy as she him.

WTT does Austen as a lively, cross-dressing comedy. (Photos courtesy Jason Anderson)

Of course they actually love each other, though ego makes them take two full acts to acknowledge it. The formula has been reliably employed from Taming of the Shrew through Big Bang Theory, so Austen doesn’t deserve all the credit, but the idea of a dreamy, unreachable millionaire, the sisterly worry about “marrying well” and the proto-feminist idea of not settling for a man you don’t love has hardly been bettered. It’s a drawing-room comedy of manners that oozes primness.

But not in this version. A mere eight actors portray more than 14 characters with the energy and ravenous timing of a farce. The actors wear a mix of Empire-waisted frocks, Reeboks and jeans; the music queues are more hip-hop than Handel, more disco than dirge. This Bennet clan resembles the Fezziwigs, not the Granthams.

Anachronisms can be hit-or-miss; the forced Mod ‘60s extravagance of WaterTower’s One Man, Two Guvnors last season was so incessantly hectoring I darted at intermission faster than Napoleon leaving Russia. Here, director Joanie Schultz hits the sweet-spot with Hamill’s script, which balances between bawdy Restoration comedy and Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. There’s very little winking at the audience; Ledel and Marrs play only Lizzy and Darcy, and with a focus that gives a classic through-line to the show. But she allows everyone else to ham it up like William Shatner on a bender.

The actors are having a ball, and the audience willing joins them. Brandon Potter in three roles — the boorish Mr. Collins, the lecherous Mr. Wickham and the catty Miss Bingley — creates three distinction scene-stealers; Justin Duncan cuts a dashing figure as Mr. Bingley and a riotously sourpussed spinster; Bob Hess’ weary Mr. Bennet transforms into a dithery country maiden; and Steph Garrett emerges in Act 2 from playing the flippant Lydia to being an imperious Lady Bracknell-esque dowager. That may be the perfect metaphor for this production: It’s wild… but also Wilde.