PLAYING IT SAFE WITH ‘MISS BENNET’
If Main Street Theater were a color, it would be gray — mature, modest and refined. If it were a television network, it would be PBS, and if it were a kind of music, it would most certainly be classical music written before 1900. Main Street Theater is a fine theater company, one whose senses and sensibilities may not always match mine but one that consistently delivers exactly what it promises to people who seem to enjoy their time there.
The theater’s latest production, “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley,” epitomizes the fact that I, a person of color under the age of 35, am clearly not Main Street Theater’s target demographic. I am not meant to obsess and chew over its work the same way I did with, say, more contemporary shows like “Balls” at Stages Repertory Theatre or “Sender” at Rec Room, nor am I supposed to relate to anyone presented onstage.
That is fine. To demand otherwise might be selfish or, put it more offensively, “millennial.” And I can recognize that in many ways “Miss Bennet” is successful. For instance, it has the best performance I’ve yet seen from the exciting young actor Lindsay Ehrhardt, who plays the fiancéefrom-hell Anne de Bourgh in a minor role that nevertheless changes the chemistry of the whole cast.
Ehrhardt has starred in more prominent roles. Productions like A.D. Players’ “You Can’t Take It With You” or Classical Theatre Company’s “The Bear and The Proposal” gave her presence but not much distinction. Even in twisted roles like “The Maids,” she was allowed a big chunk of the stage without the precision of what made her character memorable. But here, she offers something no one else could. With a snobbish, controlling female character, Ehrhardt’s judgmental squint, sour expression and woodenplank posture makes everyone else seem tedious and polite.
The story centers on the relationship between two lovable nerds, the forgotten middle child Mary (Chaney Moore) and Arthur de Bourgh (Brock Hatton). Arthur is a cousin by marriage to Mary and the inheritor to the estate of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon skillfully enrich the “Pride and Prejudice” universe without making its world feel derivative. The play works as a stand-alone.
Blake Weir, as Charles Bingley, has fun with his tedious and polite character. Weir understood the plight of a man trapped in a comfortable and static situation. Same goes for Skyler Sinclair as the flirtatious Lydia Bennet, whose sexual frustrations manifest themselves in obvious ways. These are roles that work if you hit your marks and nothing else. You can tell Ehrhardt, Weir and Sinclair want to do more, and in those rare moments when they act on that impulse, the production is a surprising delight.
So yes, “Miss Bennet” is fine. Main Street Theater is fine. But it should consider breaking out of its box sometime, and leave behind the “genteel white people talk to each other” canon that forms much of its identity. What is the exact opposite of “Miss Bennet”? The answer might not necessarily mean better, at least not at first. But at least it would be something different.