Review Roundup: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE at Open Air Theatre

Simon Reade's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice opened this week at the Open Air Theatre and runs through July 20, 2013. It stars Jane Asher, David Oakes and Jennifer Kirby.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

BroadwayWorld's Carrie Dunn writes: The broadness of characterisation and the paring-down of the plot mean that we get a Darcy (David Oakes) taciturn in the background, pacing up and down like a security guard, without ever having chance to explore his personality; and a Lizzy (Jennifer Kirby) who is vivacious and sisterly but never seems to have much interest in the menfolk - her sudden profession of feeling for the cad Wickham is out of the blue. It's a shame - both actors playing the duelling lovers offer glimpses of much potential, but have little chance to develop much chemistry.

Michael Coveney of whatsonstage.com says: The exposition of George Wickham (Barnaby Sax), though, is rather hurried, in letter form, at the top of Act Two, just as the audience is settling down and huddling together for warmth. Indeed, by the end, when things come rapidly to a head, there are so many explanatory letter-reading scenes in Deborah Bruce's production that you could have sub-titled the piece, "Honeymoon Salad, Letters Alone."

Fiona Mountford of the Evening Standard writes: Inevitably some of the texture of this immortal book is lost in translation but it's remarkably little in Simon Reade's fluid adaptation. Reade's skill is to set the supporting characters doing exactly what we expect - Bingley beaming affably and Mary squawking at her piano, for example - and then to place in the middle of these confident turns protagonists of startling depth.

Michael Billington of the Guardian says: What lifts this above a mere scissors-and-paste job is that Reade incorporates into the action characters' private thoughts: we actually hear Mr Bennet ruefully confessing to Elizabeth that his wife's "ignorance and folly greatly contributed to my amusement". But you can only take this process so far, and what you don't get is Austen's extraordinary elision of dialogue, interior reflection and ironic comment. The academic Isobel Armstrong hit the nail on the head when she said that Austen's authorial language is far more meticulous than that of her characters. When, for instance, the acolytes of Lady Catherine de Bourgh gather round to hear her "determine what weather they were to have on the morrow", the key verb lethally spears the aristocratic desire to reorder nature.

Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph writes: As the RSC's landmark production of Nicholas Nickleby proved, it is possible to retain some of a novel's narrative in a stage adaptation and lend it savour by doing so. Hear we get almost no sense of Jane Austen's all important tone of voice because the adapter, Simon Reade, strips out the novel's dialogue and dumps virtually everything else. This is particularly irritating because Austen's analysis of her heroine Elizabeth Bennet's inner thoughts, and the false judgements she makes, and repents of, in the course of the novel, are at the core of the work's meaning and, indeed, its humour.

Libby Purves of the Times says: ...This bicentennial Simon Reade adaptation provides an unusually elegant and thoughtful frame for Deborah Bruce... It clips along smartly from scene to scene without a moment's confusion... the revolving, wrought-iron set by Max Jones provides with transparent simplicity a sense of Austen's world of antechambers and corridors. Lillian Henley's piano score is perfect and the dances artfully in character. Eleanor Thorn's Lydia romps for England, smiling Jane trips primly, Lizzie circles Darcy as suspiciously as a cat. And Ed Birch's skinny, superlatively prattish Mr Collins, in black stockings and stack-heeled boots, has the best Comedy Legs since Maureen Lipman. In the second and more dramatic part, there is nice directorial invention... And Kirby, in a piece of interpretation often scorned by overfeisty screen Elizabeths, betrays during that confrontation a sudden real distress which catches your heart.

Catherine Usher of the Stage says: Anyone who follows the superbly evoked characters of Austen's novel with any degree of understanding is going to contribute an adequate performance, but in this production, all of the cast members really strive to add something fresh and new to proceedings. In particular, Ed Birch's Mr Collins is an innovative and very amusing interpretation, especially when he tries to pursue Elizabeth Bennet by joining in a group dance at the ball without a partner.

Sarah Hemming of FT.com writes: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a great Jane Austen novel must be in want of a dramatic adaptation. Certainly the screen versions of Pride and Prejudice are legion and now, courtesy of Simon Reade's new dramatisation, the five Bennet sisters and their excitable mama spring to life on the Open Air stage. It is a pleasing fit: the empire lines, bonnets and breeches all look very handsome among the roses and wrought iron of the gracious Regent's Park (a fact embraced by Max Jones's elegant ironwork set) and Deborah Bruce's spry, witty production uses the revolving stage to create a bustling social world. It's 200 years since the book was published, but Austen's astute observation of human behaviour remains as enjoyable as ever.

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