Prejudice - ‘A Rollicking Retelling of Everyone’s Favourite Romance’
By Rob Brannen
I went to see this play with my Mum and Grandma on opening night,
7th February 2024, at the Shakespeare North Playhouse.
It was a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s famous romantic comedy
“Pride and Prejudice”, by a local amateur theatre group. Also it was
a musical which we didn't realise until we got there
(I am not a fan of live musicals and I am not convinced that
this wasn't a set-up).
The play starts with a confusing but enthusiastic opening number
performed by the Bennet sisters introducing themselves
and talking about boys. They’re on Tinder
(because it’s 2024 people, get with the times!)
and they’ve never had any boyfriends. Elizabeth says the famous first
line from the book “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man of
good fortune, must be in want of a wife” to which one of her sisters’ reply
“what did you say?”
and Lizzy shrugs, saying “I dunno, it’s from some old book”.
Next they all go to a party to meet their new neighbours -
Bingley and his friend Darcy; Bingley is delightful and Darcy
is quite ill-mannered, however, they are both rich,
so Darcy gets away with it. Except, Lizzy is annoyed
with him because he isn’t dancing and she overhears him insulting her.
However, her sister, Jane, is getting along nicely with Bingley.
This sets up the rest of the story, in which
it becomes apparent that Darcy actually quite likes Lizzy
as they meet several times throughout the play.
The story progresses much as the original, except halfway
through the play “Jane Austen” (really just an actor but I guess
the real Jane Austen was busy) interrupts the play
because she doesn’t like what they’ve done with it.
Both Jane and Lizzy break the fourth wall and talk to the
audience a few times. Jane tells Lizzy that she’s doing
the story wrong, Lizzy argues that it’s not a story, it's her life,
and in the end they compromise to do a 50/50 mix of modern
and Austen story telling. I thought this twist was quite clever
because a lot of the original story cannot be told in a modern
way without some ‘Austen-time’ values. I also thought the
scenes between these two characters were quite witty.
Although Elizabeth Bennet was the main protagonist,
she came across to me as quite unlikeable.
I think the audience should have seen or heard a bit more of her
to better understand her behaviour, which at times didn’t make
sense for her character. (Fun fact: my middle name is Elizabeth
because my mum is a big dork and she loves Jane Austen).
However, I think the actor did a good job with her performance.
I also think that the actor who played the main antagonist, G Wickham,
did a good job portraying a seemingly nice person who then turns
out to be a big creep. In this version of the story,
Wickham is a DJ with a large social media presence
(which should have been an immediate red flag for Lizzy).
My mum and I both thought that most of his scenes had a much
more serious tone than the rest of the show which temporarily spoiled
the mood for the light-hearted scenes that followed.
My favourite character in the whole production was Collin Collins
because he reminded me of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute
(both from “The Office U.S”) because he was quite ridiculous and
pathetic but at the same time, he took himself very seriously.
His scenes were some of the funniest, one of which included
him doing a very awkward version of the robot at a party,
successfully making everyone around him
(including the audience) uncomfortable.
Most of the performances were pretty good despite it being the opening
night and an amateur theatre production. There were a few mistakes
but I think the actors handled them very well.
The set dressing mostly consisted of cardboard boxes which was quite fun
because it turns out you can do a lot of things with such a simple shape -
with a few changes the boxes became beds, chairs, drawers, tables and,
of course, more boxes. They probably chose this setup because
the stage was in the round so they had to be able to change things
quickly and have it look good from all angles. The one thing
I really didn’t like about the production was the artificial smoke
they sprayed in at the beginning for ‘atmosphere’.
We were sitting in the top row and all the smoke was hurting my
beautiful face and eyes. It had a really strong smell and made
the first part of the play quite uncomfortable for me.
On a final note, I really enjoyed my ice cream during the intermission.
The play was cool too, although I would have preferred less atmosphere
and more character development.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was the way social media
and phones are used and referenced in the story. It seemed to me,
that the play had been written by an older person as opposed to a
younger person; they refer to Instagram, Tinder,
TikTok and images ‘going viral’ in a way that a lot of TV and
films do when they have teenage characters
(I’m looking at you, Netflix Original Series).
I think the play is trying to tackle some important modern day issues
like cyber-bullying and mental health but it’s not handled particularly
well and seems out of place. Wickham is exposed as a vile predator
by the end of the play and this is treated as if his career is over, but in
reality I think it would be more likely that he would just make an
‘apology’ video, talking about how he’s made ‘a severe and
continuous’ lapse in his judgement. Then he would bring out an energy
drink called ‘Supreme’ the next week.
4 out of 5 stars (originally 3 but with an extra star awarded because I really appreciate that everybody worked so hard on this)
