The stage was adorned with a series of panels. The front two were made to look like the inside of an early 19th century home while the English countryside was a painted shadow residing in the background on the sets of panels further away. As the lights above the audience began to dim, music began to play. A ball was about to begin.
Montclair State University’s Kasser Theater was the host of a theatrical production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Adapted for the stage by Simon Reade, the show brought to life the world of Jane Austen and the story of one woman’s struggle with making the ultimate decision a woman could make in 1813: to marry for comfort or for love. The heroine, Elizabeth, or “Lizzie,” Bennet, played by Brooke Garfinkel, chose to marry for love by rejecting not one but two marriage proposals: one from a Mr. Lucas who was far more interested in inheritance than love and another from Mr. Darcy, played by Chris Dubrow, the tragically misunderstood and brooding man that Elizabeth eventually comes to understand and to love.
The setup of the stage was sparse but purposeful, relying more on the beauty of a few individual set pieces rather than overwhelming the audience with clutter. Among the different panel series that changed, depending on whose grand house the audience visited along with the Bennets, there was a garland of flowers that descended from the rafters whenever a ball was taking place and a piano forte. At one point, there was even a chaise lounge that Mrs. Bennet, played by McKenzie Custin, laid upon, fanning herself as she was sent into a fit of nerves when she discovered one of her daughters had eloped.
There were moments when the sentiment of the original work was heightened on the stage. Moments such as Kitty’s, played by Erika Ortner, contagious glee and the dramatic display of desperation shown by Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth after he confessed his love for her, all took elements from the novel and brought the play a more noticeable degree of emotion whereas the original was a shade more subtle. But, in all, the show played well on Austen’s sense of comedy with subtle pauses after unpleasant or uninteresting remarks, the silliness and at times small tragedy that comes with youth and love and the irony that love provides.