There are probably lovelier books in English than Pride and Prejudice, but it's not easy to remember what they might be. And there are probably more successful transfers from page to stage than the one Peter Amster has directed for Northlight Theatre, but it's not easy to imagine that, either. Using James Maxwell's adaptation (as revised by Alan Stanford), Amster has managed to capture both the comic and romantic aspects of this most comic and romantic of books. In the process, he's created the Platonic ideal live chick flick.
For those who haven't had the pleasure, Pride and Prejudice amounts to this: Elizabeth Bennett is one of five sisters in an English country town whose mother is desperate to get them married. When a bachelor rents a nearby country estate, Mrs. Bennett swings into matchmaking action, and for a while everything seems to go well: bachelor Bingley is enamored of oldest daughter Jane. The only fly in the ointment is Bingley's friend Darcy, a snob who makes fun of the Bennetts not just behind their backs but to their faces. Elizabeth, in particular, infuriates him by refusing to take him seriously. Anyone who's ever read a Harlequin romance, or turned on the Lifetime channel, knows that Darcy's aggravation with Elizabeth will lead inevitably to his falling in love with her, while Jane gets Bingley and the less virtuous and intelligent Bennett sisters get some portion of comeuppance.
But Austen's work isn't about plot--it's about characterizations that double as observations on the constraints of life (for poor men as well as women) as lived in England in the 18th Century. That's what makes her work so hard to capture on stage, because it requires perfect pitch for Austen's tone and an instinct for translating that into performed action. This production has both. The idiot mother literally goes on her knees to Elizabeth once she realizes how wealthy this least-favorite daughter will be; Bingley's sister, covetous of Darcy's attention and envious of its being turned on Elizabeth, sashays and works her fan and talks through her nose like a Monty Python twit; Darcy's aunt (played by the same actress, the splendidly on-target Karen Woditsch) snorts and trumpets and delivers coups de grace from the wings; the Bennetts' idiot cousin Mr. Collins bows and scrapes before the aunt while fussing about his importance, of which there is exactly none. And at the center of it all are Carey Cannon as Elizabeth, effortlessly balancing a charming superiority with human weakness, and Nick Sandys as Darcy, unbending himself with suitable difficulty until, like a dam breaking, he's gushingly in love with Elizabeth before he knows what's happened. They are surrounded by able supporting players, of whom Nigel Patterson (as the idiotic Collins) and Patrick Clear (as the comically detached Mr. Bennett) stand out.
When a cast is this uniformly strong, credit goes to the director. Amster finds the clear through-lines in the complicated plot, and manages to seem casual as he introduces the audience to a whole set of complicated customs which must be understood before they can be satirized. He suggests the context in which the characters live--the gardens, the confining parlors, the Assembly Hall where balls take place-without distracting from their actions. He gets wonderful support for this from scenic designers Richard and Jacqueline Penrod, whose revolve at center stage conveys with simple elegance the extent to which the characters' lives consist of walking to nowhere.
Pride and Prejudice is a tiny gem, and shouldn't be overpraised lest people newly introduced to the work say, "Is that all there is?" But what there is, is plenty, and in this iteration is perfect.