Pantomime ruins reputation
Film based on Austen’s classic novel
Kind fans, I was well pleased to hear that a troupe of actors would be reprising the substance of my work, particularly my Pride & Prejudice, in a modern pantomime. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
Yet upon watching Austenland, adapted by lady writer Shannon Hale from her modestly charming novel by that name, I find so little affection for the personages of my humble books I felt I must write to share the substance of my heart.
“What a very pleasant pleasure it is indeed,” one player utters, obsequiously, upon the arrival of the guests.
If only it were so! Austenland has a general preoccupation with wedding bells that I, admittedly, share, but what follows is such cruel buffoonery. A young lady from America — also pleasingly named Jane — is less obsessed with my scribblings than with Mr. Colin Firth’s turn in Mr. Darcy’s breeches. When she reaches the unspeakably spinster age of 33, Jane removes herself from her home to an immersive Austen holiday near Pemberley. There, with bosom heaving and unshackled by the conventions of the modern world, she is free to earnestly seek ... what, exactly? Surely not true love, among those unreliable actors?
It is yet more gormless. Even as this pretty miss jokes about her biological clock ticking to find her Mr. Darcy (or failing him, a Mr. Right), Keri Russell, the actress who portrays this poor creature, is quite obviously heavily awaiting the joy of motherhood! Such was the tedium that my sister Cassandra and I devised a diverting drinking game whenever the actress in question appeared in a scene clutching an oversized bonnet, a shawl, a journal or a carpetbag to her midsection, all in effort (not to be indelicate) to hide the telltale swell of being with child, we drank of fortifying cordial. It was to no avail, for in addition to simply horrid editing, whenever the ersatz heroine strode purposefully across the lawn or played croquet, the wind billowed her garments around her swelled form.
All this stage business did not render it invisible. On the contrary, Miss Russell was all belly, distractingly so, particularly given the narrative at hand.
I repaired to my room, where I was free to think and be wretched.
As dictated to Miss Nathalie Atkinson, lifelong Austenite and Darcy aficionado.