‘Pride and Prejudice’ Gets a Gender-Bending Contemporary Twist

June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 michaelhobanLeave a comment

(Cast of Actor’s Shakespeare Project’s ‘Pride & Prejudice. PHOTO CREDIT NILE SCOTT STUDIOS)

Reviewed by Shelley A. Sackett

‘Pride and Prejudice’ –Written by Kate Hamill; Adapted from the novel by Jane Austen; Directed by Christopher V. Edwards; Choreography by Alexandra Beller; Sound Design by Ian Scot; Lighting Design by Deb Sullivan. Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Balch Arena Theater, 40 Talbot Ave., Medford, through June 29.

Jane Austen, the 19^th century author of ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Mansfield Park’ and ‘Emma’ did not hide the ball. Marriage in sexist Regency England is the central theme of all her novels, which she penned under the pseudonym “A Lady.” The laws of coverture, which governed marriage, stripped a wife of all her legal and economic rights, essentially making her a ward of her husband. In the absence of brothers, her family’s fortune would pass to her husband upon her father’s death.

‘Pride and Prejudice’: A Farcical Adaptation at the Trinity Rep

October 12, 2018 michaelhobanLeave a comment

by Deanna Dement Myers

‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Kate Hamill, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen. Directed and Choreographed by Birgitta Victorson; Set Design by Michael McGarty; Costume Design by Olivera Gajic; Lighting Design by Dawn Chiang; Sound Design by Broken Chord Voice; and Dialect Coaching by Candice Brown Production Stage Managed by Meg Tracy Leddy. Performance through Nov. 4 at Trinity Rep., 201 Washington St., Providence.

“I love balls.”

So sighs the delightful Katie Croyle, who plays Lydia, the wild, youngest daughter of the Bennet family as she contemplates the upcoming party in their English neighborhood. This overshadows the traditional opening line (“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”) and signals that there might be a contemporary spin on this classic tale of manners, misunderstanding, and proper matches.

Trinity Rep’s “Pride and Prejudice” a Gender-Bending Comic Romp

October 9, 2018October 9, 2018 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The opening show of Trinity Rep’s 55th season is “Pride and Prejudice” by Kate Hamill, an adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Written in 1813, the story depicts events, society and romance of that era. The four Bennet sisters, through their individual personalities, relationship to each other, their parents, societal acquaintances from all classes and finally their love interests reveal the manners and mores, the wit, pangs of the heart and the spunk of Austen’s characters.