For Jane Austen fans who adore the spirited Bennet sisters and their respective
partners, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly ,now on at view in Glen Ellyn,
might be a perfect addition to your holiday calendar. The show is well-executed, amusing,
and the two lead actors, Whitney Dottery as Mary Bennet and Daniel Millhouse as Arthur de
Bourgh, are outstanding in their respective roles. Dottery maintains perfect
diction and Georgian composure while delivering witty one-liners with a satisfying
snarky undercurrent. Her emotional depth rings true. Millhouse fully embodies
Arthur’s characteristics – his boisterous performance is grounded in physicality
and believability. References to the source material are abundant and lead to
delightful scenes - the male cast’s frantic tete-a-tete regarding courtship of the
Bennet sisters is just inherently hilarious.
For those who would delve deeper into dissection of plot and arc, however,
the play may not be your cup of Austen tea. The stakes in the source novel, Pride
and Prejudice, are high. The Bennet’s will lose their land and livelihood if their
daughters do not marry into gentry society, and their unconventionality provides
further complication. In Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly no such conflict
exists after Jane and Elizabeth’s successful marriages. A central theme presented
is being trapped in life roles without choices and the exploration is a bit thin and
inadequately resolved. Instead, the focus is on breathless romance, and a
charming foray into the future involving characters we hold dear.
The comedic elements of the play are situational, character-driven, and
crowd-pleasing, if somewhat predictable. Excellent character actor work abounds,
though sometimes unevenly enacted. Lydia Wickham, played by Danielle Kerr,
remains immature and impulsive, but I found her scandalous behaviors a tad
overdone - more subtlety in stage direction would suffice. I wished for stronger
script development of Jane Bingley’s character, as there was content left
unmined. Overall, the cast did an excellent job solidly supporting the leads with
effusive breakout moments of their own.
My companion’s review was that the writing turned Austen’s aesthetic into
a sitcom. I don’t disagree, with the caveat that sitcoms can be very enjoyable
indeed.
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly is playing Thursdays through Sundays at McCaninch Arts Center at the College of Dupage, 425 Fawell Blve in Glen Ellyn through December 17, 2023. for tickets and information go to https://www.atthemac.org/events/miss-bennet/
Photo by Rex Howard
For more reviews go to www.TheatreInChicago.com