Editor’s note: We greeted the Westport Country Playhouse’s new season with a great deal of enthusiasm. We thought it would be best to publish two reviews of Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, one by our drama and cinema columnist, Susan Granger, the other by reporter (and budding playwright) Ken Valenti.

Valenti’s review is below. Granger’s is here. 

Enjoy.

By Ken Valenti

Would Elizabeth Darcy, née Bennet, be friends with Napoleon Bonaparte? 

In Ken Ludwig’s new play at the Westport Country Playhouse, Pride and Prejudice 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, the fictional heroine and the ousted French emperor get the chance to find out. That’s just one avenue explored in Ludwig’s entertaining what-if of a comedy, filled with characters from the Jane Austen novel that, more than two centuries since its publication, still finds ways to be revisited, played with and parodied.

At the start, Elizabeth, willful and independent as ever even after a year of marriage to Mr. Darcy, has agreed to the government’s request that she and her husband host Napoleon as he awaits his exile to Elba. She has made this decision without asking her husband, who objects forcefully, if futilely, when she tells him.

Napoleon is, in Darcy’s words, “The most hated man in all of England.”

But it’s too late. Napoleon is on his way, arriving minutes later looking disheveled as an 1810s ancestor to Lieutenant Columbo. 

The whole point to secreting the Frenchman at Pemberley is to keep him out of sight. Soon, however, there is talk of a ball and a plan for escape. (Napoleon considers it his “duty as a prisoner of war” to attempt to slip away.)

It all makes for good fun in the show that kicks off the Playhouse’s season. It’s driven by several strong performances and an off-the-wall idea for historical fiction written by the man who gave us Lend Me a Tenor. Ludwig and director Emily Mann juggle the characters in a plot that moves quickly. 

Elizabeth is played with spirit and humor by Delphi Borich. Reg Rogers, playing Napoleon, brings the Frenchman’s accent and demanding personality as well as news of the waltz, the popular European dance where partners actually get to hold each other, rather than settling for the dainty contact permitted in English dances.

Supporting characters add to the fun. Kristine Nielsen is a riot as Lady Catherine De Bourgh, Darcy’s domineering, somewhat kooky aunt, whose every facial expression is a gem. Carson Elrod brings energy as both the clergyman Mr. Collins and Major Hudson Lowe.

Less successful is the fairly flat supporting-character romance between Lieutenant Melville (Mathias Goldstein) and Anne De Bourgh (Allison Wick), Lady Catherine’s daughter, although an early scene where the younger De Bourgh shows off her skill at the piano brings a few laughs with her gestures and expressions.

Darcy comes off as a conventional character, without much to distinguish him from other staid husbands wed to more free-spirited wives. When he and Elizabeth argue over whether he is impulsive, they cite episodes from their past that, in this context, are more informative than convincing.

When it comes to adaptations, reimaginings and parodies, Pride and Prejudice seems to be a prime target. A new miniseries based on the novel will hit Netflix in December, coming not long after the streaming service began carrying the less-faithful Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a 2016 movie based on a 2009 novel of the same name. BritBox just released a series The Other Bennet Sister that focuses on Mary, one of Elizabeth’s four sisters. That’s also based on a novel, from 2020. 

Ludwig’s sense of comedy and inventiveness allows him to update the proceedings with themes that take on a modern sense and sensibility. (Yes, yes, that’s a different novel. Still, it applies.) So, as Napoleon and Elizabeth get to talking, he assures her that she has the power to change the world. One suggestion: women may not be able to vote, but that’s no reason to think they can’t run for office.

It would be hard to find a female character in classic literature better suited for adaptation to modern thinking than Elizabeth. So it makes sense that she would develop a connection with Napoleon, as a representative of the larger world.

And it’s fitting when she volunteers to undertake a risky mission for the ex-emperor (again, without telling her husband), heading out in borrowed riding boots, with a sword and an epaulet-decked military jacket over her dress.

She punctuates the courage she finds to take on this task with the exhortation, “Do not judge a woman by who she was yesterday.”

Ken Valenti

^{_{A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.}}

Westport Country Playhouse

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www.westportplayhouse.org

^{_{The Westport Country Playhouse is a non-profit that produces theater from playwrights, actors, directors, and designers of all backgrounds, while entertaining audiences and exploring human and societal issues along the way. Image Robert Benson.}}