The Rep opens summer time season with fast-paced, witty rendition of ‘Delight and Prejudice’

Opening the Arkansas Repertory Theatre‘s 2024 summer season is a Kate Hamill adaptation of “Delight and Prejudice,” the basic and well-loved novel of manners by Jane Austen. It’s a complicated story of households, love and obstacles created by the British societal class system of the 19th century. The Rep’s manufacturing is fast-paced, witty and comedic, with sudden twists and eccentric characters who completely illustrate that one’s excessive station will not be essentially on account of excessive character or earned by advantage.

“Delight and Prejudice” is centered on the Bennets, a decidedly center class English household of two dad and mom and 5 daughters who’re coming into younger womanhood. The household property is “entailed,” that means that it could solely be handed to a male inheritor, of which the Bennets have none. Fearing monetary damage if Mr. Bennet dies, Mrs. Bennet is completely obsessive about making certain that her daughters marry properly. The harried matchmaking mom, performed completely by Alanna Hamill Newton, works ceaselessly to make sure that her daughters attend a sequence of fancy costume balls and appeal each eligible man within the room (she, in fact, has researched all of them and their numerous incomes).

Matthew Sewell Images

A lot to Mrs. Bennet’s dismay, daughter Elizabeth (Madeleine Barker) exhibits completely little interest in enjoying this recreation or within the notion of marriage in any respect. 

When an eligible and monied bachelor named Mr. Bingley (Alexander Matos) strikes right into a neighboring property and attends a ball, Mrs. Bennet units her sights on him instantly and he develops a budding curiosity in Jane (Caro Dubberly), the eldest Bennet daughter. Accompanying Mr. Bingley to the ball is his even wealthier pal, the aloof and haughty Mr. Darcy (Will Adams). His snobbish method engenders dislike from the ladies, particularly when he’s overheard insulting the seems to be of Elizabeth as “not good-looking sufficient” to curiosity him in a dance together with her.  

Quickly, one other suitor, the flamboyantly madcap Mr. Collins (additionally Alexander Matos), arrives on the Bennet residence and begins wooing Elizabeth. Concurrently, a military officer named George Wickham (a 3rd function for Alexander Matos) arrives on the scene and relays a story of his vital previous mistreatment by Mr. Darcy, contributing to Elizabeth’s dislike of Darcy.

Matthew Sewell Images

Because the play progresses and numerous marital unions are deliberate, a rotating solid of upper class characters intrude to maintain their well-born brethren from turning into betrothed to girls from a decrease social strata. Nonetheless, in step with the literary and theatrical follow of the time, love in the end overcomes each satisfaction and prejudice, with comfortable endings in abundance at play’s finish.

Amongst a really robust solid, standout performances embrace Madeleine Barker because the unbiased and resolute Elizabeth Bennet, and Alanna Hamill Newton because the comically decided and semi-delirious Mrs. Bennet, who typically stole the scene together with her shrieking efforts to avoid wasting the household from impending poverty.

“Delight and Prejudice” is, at backside, a narrative of romance’s energy to beat man-made impediments, and The Rep’s manufacturing successfully makes use of comedy to skewer notions of sophistication and privilege, rendering them in the end unimportant compared to love, loyalty and household. Spend an evening on the theater earlier than this present ends — you’ll be glad to reconnect with a basic.  

“Delight and Prejudice” performs on the Arkansas Repertory Theatre June 18-30. Efficiency instances are 7 p.m. Tue.-Thu.; 8 p.m. Fri.; 2 p.m. and eight p.m. Sat.; and a pair of p.m. Solar., and tickets vary from $20-$65.

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