Pemberley Pride

Ensemble Theatre Company’s charming production of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley is a real Yuletide cracker!

The New Vic show, directed by Andrew Barnicle and written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, follows the colorful characters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice two years later as they gather at Pemberley, the stately pile of Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife, Elizabeth nee Bennet, in 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo.

Donnla Hughes plays bookish Mary, the last unmarried Bennet sister, who meets Arthur de Bourgh, the scholarly nephew of the insufferably grand Lady Catherine and Darcy’s cousin, artfully played by Paul Culos.

Throw in Christian Pedersen as Darcy, Paige Lindsey White as Lizzy, Matt Koenig at Bingley, Erin Barnes as Jane, Caroline Innerbichler as Lydia, and Samantha Eggers as Anne, Lady Catherine’s imperious daughter, and you have a delightful holiday mix spotlighting Regency England’s complex class hierarchy.

It is the perfect not-to-be missed amusement for the holidays. It runs through December Sunday, 17.