Poor poor Mary.
The forgotten sister of the very distinctive bunch of Pemberley women, Mary possesses oodles of expertise with each pen and piano. But affairs of the center, of which her prospects are grim, have taken a again seat to extra sensible issues for much too lengthy.
However there may be one clunky dreamboat who makes Mary’s muted coronary heart pump. In a routine world, it will be all so easy, proper? Nonetheless, with Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s sequel to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” it’s something however.
The luscious levity with heartwarming vacation fare is what makes TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley” such balm for these pushing away from the hard-hearted miserly Scrooge, usually the face of Yuletide leisure. Director Jeffrey Lo fills his clean canvas mightily with a spry, energetic solid that has their sly tongues firmly in cheeks, providing up delight peppered with posh poignancy. The very particular model of the piece is constructed and guided with masterful strokes, many moments providing up an efficient recipe of interval humor with trendy sensibilities, tinged with efficient anachronistic touches as well.
Mary (Elissa Beth Stebbins) is wildly pensive, expressing her ideas on paper and dazzling abilities with 88 ivory keys. But it surely’s the love that surrounds her, affections that aren’t hers, that she yearns to own. Proper now, love is occupied by sisters Elizabeth Darcy (Kausar Mohammed) and her fella Fitzwilliam (Adam Griffith), along with the mighty pregnant Jane Bingley (Amanda Pulcini) and her beau Charles (William Thomas Hodgson). But love is a really unfastened time period for Lydia Wickham (Sophie Oda), a coquettish tart locked into a wedding much less actual than Santa Claus.
The goal of Mary’s craving is chivalrous charmer Arthur De Bourgh (David Toshiro Crane), whose confidence in himself is wobbly at greatest. Perhaps it’s as a result of he has a little bit of a secret he doesn’t absolutely find out about, coming within the type of the fiery Anne (Maggie Mason) gumming up the works.
On the planet of 1815 excessive society, a lady present with out the only real objective of touchdown a person might be thought of preposterous. The very exact and purposeful script from Gunderson and Melcon neatly by no means leans in that route for its heroine. It’s everybody else who ain’t able to get on Mary’s degree. For them, it’s simply so bizarre that Mary is simply, properly, alone.
That is the place Stebbins leads the proceedings with veteran sharpness. Simply discover how usually she merely observes when she’s not the main focus of the motion. It’s the flexibility to pay attention and course of that builds context superbly, reaching an natural degree of fact when the main focus returns to Mary’s conflicted and annoyed shoulders. Mary doesn’t want anybody, however actually wishes somebody to share the world’s magic and mysteries with.
Every solid member takes their flip stealing a scene or two, providing assorted and layered portrayals with taut textures inside Austen’s world. Crane’s capacity to parry with Stebbins means each talent units thrive, with Crane’s Arthur wholly playful as he tries to study what this love factor is all about. Oda’s motion bounding across the stage all through as she bats eyes, one who couldn’t be thought of reliable, at all times lends itself to cheeky humor. The evil, entitled disruptor that’s Anne is portrayed with a razor’s edge by Moore.
It’s by means of the conscience of Mary that the motion builds, with Lo’s capacity to stack that degree of unity giving the piece its legs. The solid additionally supplies a terrific playground with Andrea Bechert’s detailed, Regency-inspired set, with the bit across the Christmas tree reaching a satisfying conclusion. The pleasant interval work from Cathleen Edwards (costumes), Roxie Johnson (wigs), James Ard (sound) and Spense Matubang (lights) all contribute to the playful nature of the story.
A grand payoff is barely pretty much as good as its setup, and the play’s waning moments supply that up with one thing that’s, would possibly I say, emotional? As a bit coping with the tree turns into its personal by means of line, it serves as an amazing metaphor. Discovering real love and adorning an empty tree each take work. However ultimately, if performed proper, each can come out stunning. That magnificence would possibly even arrive on the identical time.
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Affiliation and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social
‘MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY’
By Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, introduced by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
By means of: Dec. 29
The place: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Street, Palo Alto
Operating time: 2 hours, quarter-hour with an intermission
Tickets: $49-$109; theatreworks.org
