This flat revival erases any doubt that the Jane Austen craze is well and truly past its sell-by date. The Gate first staged this production in 1994 at the height of Austen-mania, around the same time as the BBC adaptation that turned a wet-shirted Colin Firth into anobject of desire. The popularity of that screen version puts the onus on anyone who dares present the story again to invent it anew.
James Maxwell's stage version is a straightforward compression of the novel, wide open for interpretation. But Alan Stanford's direction presents the story without context, and with little apparent appreciation for the satire at its core. No efforts are made through staging or design to establish the lower social status of the Bennet family, which drives Mrs Bennet to pursue good matches for her daughters so voraciously, and fuels all the twists and turns of the plot. The obvious vehicle for this message is Elizabeth, our heroine and the family's conscience; but in the first scene there is no differentiation between her and the other simpering daughters.
Elizabeth also becomes the production's narrator, providing cover for scene changes, but Justine Mitchell delivers those passages of monologue completely straight, not exploiting them as opportunities for commentary. Stanford directs the whole affair as broad comedy with patches of melodrama: laugh lines are punched up, and the biggest guffaws are generated by the repetition of character quirks - Mr. Collins's priggishness, Mary's bookishness.
Nearly across the board, the characters are exaggerated stock types: the frivolous younger Bennet sisters shriek and trill, Barbara Brennan does a drag-queen turn as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and Mark O'Halloran is so ramrod-straight as Darcy that he comes off camp. Alone among the cast, Bill Golding displays excellent timing and modulation as the sensible, ironic Mr Bennet.
Costume dramas played as light entertainment are what we have come to expect from the Gate in summertime, but this production's status as a bit of fun is challenged by its ponderous pace and three-hour running time. The production's inability, or refusal, to engage in any kind of commentary on the text seems particularly egregious given that it is being presented by a leading, heavily subsidised Irish theatre. It ends up gently celebrating the greed and stratification of a society that Austen was criticising, and from which its producing culture has spent centuries trying to differentiate itself - an enterprise as opportunistic as Mrs Bennet selling her daughters off to rich men for a few bob.
· Until August 31. Box office: 00 353 1 874 4045.
