Martha Brigham
Through December 23 - Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley at Marin Theatre Company. It's been an excellent year for this Jane Austen enthusiast, first with Whit Stillman's sparkling film adaptation Love & Friendship and now with this world premiere Pride and Prejudice "sequel" by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon. Set at Darcy's Pemberley estate two years after the machinations of Austen's novel, the play focuses on middle Bennet sister Mary and the awakening of her interest in one Arthur de Bourgh, distant cousin to Darcy. Mary and Arthur are played by the fabulous Martha Brigham and Adam Magill, paired again here after their turn as a Chekhovian couple in SF Playhouse's Stupid Fucking Bird, and the entire cast brings Gunderson and Melcon's script to life with a heaping dose of wit and humor. The playwrights clearly know Austen backwards forwards and sideways, and even include a clever self-aware moment here and there to keep the action from descending into cliche (or farce, as one character remarks). It's the highest compliment to Gunderson and Melcon, and to the cast as well, that an Austen neophyte could easily think Miss Bennet is an adaptation and not a wholly original work.