Pride and Prejudice at Rochester’s Geva Theater (a review)

The author has no biases to speak of. However, when I hear that someone has tried to adapt one of my favorite literary works for the stage or screen, I expect failure, and I’m generally right.

Of course, there are exceptions. I think of Booth Tarkington’s Alice Adams (1936 film starring Katharine Hepburn), Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1949 film starring Broderick Crawford), Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1980 musical) and (surprisingly ) The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002 and 2003 films starring Ian McKellen).

But the list of failures is much longer. These include Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1974 film starring Robert Redford); Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities (1990 film starring Tom Hanks); and Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1997 Broadway musical; we had the misfortune to attend a performance with the unspeakably hideous Sebastian Bach in the title role).

So when I saw that Geva Theater (Rochester, New York) was planning to adapt Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the last show of its 2007-08 season, I had serious reservations. I know and love the novel, but felt no need to see it performed, or worse, shattered, on stage. Fortunately, Geva’s show was a pleasant surprise.

Marge Betley (Geva’s playwright in residence) and Mark Cuddy (Geva’s artistic director and director of this show) adapted the novel themselves, opting to stick as closely with the Jane Austen story as possible. They didn’t add new characters or new scenes, and they used as much of Austen’s language as possible. They wisely decided not to hire a storyteller.

Despite Betley and Cuddy’s smart decisions, the result was not convincing theater. For one thing, there were just too many characters; Although I am familiar with Pride and Prejudice, I still had trouble keeping track of some of them.

David Christopher Wells and Meghan Wolf in But all the Geva audience really wanted was to see their favorite Austen characters come to life. They weren’t disappointed, especially with Elizabeth Bennet, played by Meghan Wolf, an attractive brunette who gave us all the liveliness, wit, and intelligence one could wish for in Austen’s heroine.

For the romantics, Wolf and David Christopher Wells, who played Mr. Darcy, made a surprising couple. And as a director, Mr. Cuddy made sure his audience believed not only in Elizabeth’s unlikely attraction to the ill-mannered Mr. Darcy, but also in her relationships with her sister Jane (Alyssa Rae), her best friend Charlotte Lucas. (Vanessa LaFortune) and, above all, her father. Played by Guy Paul, Mr. Bennet was a rewardingly complex character.

Most of the actors seemed to appreciate that they were actors in dramatic entertainment; gave life to their characters. Randy Rollison portrayed the pompous and self-absorbed Mr. Collins with complete comedic effect. Another audience favorite was Melanie Little as the libertine and self-righteous Mary Bennet.

But some members of the cast seemed to be simply reciting passages from the novel, most egregiously, Vanessa LaFortune as Charlotte Lucas. Also, in my opinion, Carole Monferdini as Lady Catherine de Bourgh failed to capture the essence of Austen’s dragon lady, and her costume suggested one of the witches from The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, we were unable to understand the opening lines of the play, uttered stridently by Mrs. Bennet (Peggy Cosgrove) in an accent that continued to challenge us throughout the play.

Women don’t have a monopoly on Jane Austen. But if this had been a movie, it would be a girl movie; The women in Geva’s audience loved Darcy’s awkward courtship with Elizabeth Bennet. The men, however, were not so grateful. In the men’s room in the intermission (which followed immediately after Elizabeth’s rejection of Mr. Darcy’s proposal), a man commented to a friend, “He owes me a lot for this.” His friend agreed: “I’m not saying put the gun to my mouth, but come closer.”

By the way, if one must adapt someone else’s novel, I find it better to start with a piece of literature that is simply second-rate, rather than a masterpiece like Pride and Prejudice. He worked with Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1939 film starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable), Edna Ferber’s Showboat (1927 musical), Stephen King’s The Shining (1980 film also starring Nicholson) and No Country for Old. Men by Cormac McCarthy (2007). movie starring Tommy Lee Jones).