Austentatious, 9/23, 8PM

Out of all the shows being offered at the festival, the show I was most looking forward to was Austentatious. Unfortunately, that also meant that it had the greatest potential to disappoint me, and, unfortunately, to a certain extent, it did.

Not to say that it doesn't have its bright spots, but the fault ultimately lies in the plot, which is unnecessarily complicated. A community theater is putting on a production of Pride and Prejudice. The script for the production is adapted, with a great deal of liberties, from the movie, by Emily (Stacey Sargeant), who conceives of the show as a dance musical, complete with a climactic tap-off. Emily is also playing the role of Elizabeth Bennett, and is dating the show's director, Dominic (Stephen Bel Davies), a film director who is making his theatrical directing debut. He doesn't understand the limitations of theatre, and envisions the show as an epic spectacular. Jealous of their relationship, and of Emily's part, is the actress playing Lydia Bennett, Lauren (Amy Goldberger). Her boyfriend, David (George Merrick), came to help her audition, and, surprisingly, ends up getting the part of Mr. Darcy. He begins to develop feelings for the show's hard-working and thankless stage manager, Sam (Stephanie D'Abruzzo), which also makes Lauren jealous, and she vows to sabotage their relationship. There is also Blake (Paul Wyatt), who likes to come to rehearsal right after getting high. Not to mention, they still haven't found an actor to play Wickham.

Whew! Still with me?

Some of these plot points work better than others. The budding relationship between Sam and David is cute, and the show nicely acknowledges the tireless effort put in by a stage manager. However, several of these plot points seem unnecessary, such as Dominic's vision of the production as a film epic -- the direction that Emily wants to take the show in certainly provides for enough conflict between the two, and seems to affect the final production much more. There are also constant mentions of the theatre group's old director who has gone on to head a dinner theater. These acknowledgements of him occur too often for a character never seen, and Lauren doesn't need to be equally jealous of two relationships.

Removing some of this unnecessary drama would cut down the show, and quicken the pace, so the show arrives quicker at what is easily its best moment -- the actual performance of Pride and Prejudice. This is perhaps the worst production you've ever seen since Springtime For Hitler, and it is absolutely hilarious. I think the staging of Pride and Prejudice might be worth the price of admission alone! Thanks mainly to this moment, act 2 works much better than act 1 as a whole, which made me feel that the intermission was unnecessary. I think this would run better as a 90-minute intermissionless musical, rather than the current time of 140 minutes.

The performers are not at fault; they do what they can with the material they're given. D'Abruzzo and Merrick, especially, provide heart to this zany musical. I did enjoy a few songs, such as "The Next Best Thing," and "Between the Lines," but overall, I found the score to be mostly forgettable.

So, at the price of $20, as I said, the show very well might be worth a visit to see the actual production of Pride and Prejudice. And maybe if you don't go in with high expectations as I did, you'll enjoy the show more as a whole.

Either way, Austentatious will certainly show one of the worst community theatre productions you've ever witnessed...no matter how many others you've seen!