PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Adapted by Christina Calvit
LATW Performance Script 7.9.2012
CHARACTERS (with doubling)
Narrator, Kitty, Mrs. Gardiner
Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine
Mr. Bennet, Sir William, Forster, Fitzwilliam, Mr. Gardiner
Lydia, Caroline
Jane, Charlotte
Lizzy
Bingley, Mr. Collins, Mr. Wickham
Mary, Female Guest, Miss De Bourgh, Servant
Darcy
(OPENING MUSIC UP AND UNDER.)
NARRATOR
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
(ENTER MR. AND MRS. BENNET.)
MRS. BENNET
(GREATLY EXCITED.) My dear Mr. Bennet! Have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?
MR. BENNET
I have not.
MRS. BENNET
Do not you want to know who has taken it?
MR. BENNET
You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.
MRS. BENNET
Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune and he is to take possession before Michaelmas.
MR. BENNET
What is his name?
MRS. BENNET
Bingley. What a fine thing for our girls!
MR. BENNET
How so? How can it affect them?
MRS. BENNET
My dear Mr. Bennet, how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.
MR. BENNET
Is that his design in settling here?
MRS. BENNET
Design! Nonsense! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.
MR. BENNET
I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party.
MRS. BENNET
My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.
MR. BENNET
In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.
MRS. BENNET
But my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley.
MR. BENNET
It is more than I engage for, I assure you.
MRS. BENNET
But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him if you do not.
MR. BENNET
You are over scrupulous surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.
MRS. BENNET
I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; but you are always giving her the preference. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.
MR. BENNET
You mistake me, my dear. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.
(TRANSITIONAL MUSIC UP. EXIT MRS. BENNET, ENTER NARRATOR.)
NARRATOR
Mr. Bennet was, in fact among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him...
MR. BENNET
...though to the last, always assuring his wife that he should not go. (EXITS.)
MRS. BENNET
(ENTERING WITH ALL FIVE OF HER DAUGHTERS. THEY ARE PREPARING FOR THE BALL.) Ah, I knew I should persuade him. Your father loves you girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance! Jane, you look in rare beauty.
LYDIA
Mrs. Melton told Maria Lucas that Mr. Bingley brings eight ladies to the ball tonight—Eight ladies! Lord!
JANE
Lydia.
LIZZY
That is a grievous number of ladies, indeed. Mr. Bingley is quite sunk in my estimation.
MRS. BENNET
I beg you will not be so pert, Lizzy! (THE NARRATOR COMES FORWARD WITH AN OUTRAGEOUS HAIR RIBBON.) Kitty, fix your hair ribbons.
NARRATOR/KITTY
Yes, Mamma. (NARRATOR RETREATS.)
MRS. BENNET
And Lydia, pull your bodice up, for mercy's sake. Mary. (SHE SIGHS. TO LYDIA, MORE CHEERFULLY.) Though you are the youngest, Lydia, I daresay Mr. Bingley will dance with you, too.
LYDIA
I’m not afraid. Kitty and I have been practicing our steps. But listen—besides eight ladies, my Aunt Phillips said Mr. Bingley is to bring two gentlemen.
MARY
Far be it from me, sister, to dispute your information—but to my certain knowledge Mr. Bingley has only six guests. His five sisters and a cousin.
LYDIA
Ten.
MARY
Six.
LYDIA
Ten.
MARY
Six...
(TRANSITION INTO BALL. MUSIC UP AND UNDER, WITH THE SOUND OF CONVERSATION AND LAUGHTER. ENTER MR. BINGLEY AND PARTY. )
NARRATOR
But when Mr. Bingley's party entered the ballroom, it consisted of only three altogether.
MARY AND LYDIA
(DISAPPOINTED.) Oh.
NARRATOR
There was Mr. Bingley, good-looking and gentlemanlike; with easy, unaffected manners. There was his sister—
MISS BINGLEY
Miss Caroline Bingley.
NARRATOR
And there was his friend, Mr. Darcy, who soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien—and the report, spread about by Sir William Lucas—
SIR WILLIAM
He has ten thousand a year.
LYDIA
A fine figure of a man.
MRS. BENNET
Much handsomer than Mr. Bingley!
NARRATOR
And he was looked at with great admiration, until—
SIR WILLIAM
Mr. Darcy! Pray, sir—may I introduce you to some of the lovely ladies that are here among us? There must be some here you would wish to be made known to.
DARCY
(COLDLY.) None, I thank you. (BEAT.)
LYDIA
What a horrid man!
FEMALE GUEST
He has the most forbidding, disagreeable countenance.
SIR WILLIAM
His manners certainly don't compare to Mr. Bingley's.
MRS. BENNET
He is the proudest, most conceited man in the world!
NARRATOR
And everybody hoped he would never come there again.
(BINGLEY MOVES TO DARCY.)
BINGLEY
Come Darcy— I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.
DARCY
I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. In such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable.
BINGLEY
I would not be so fastidious as you are for a kingdom! Upon my honor, I never met with so many pleasant girls in all my life as I have this evening and there are several of them you see uncommonly pretty.
DARCY
You were dancing with the only handsome girl in the room.
BINGLEY
Oh! You mean Miss Jane Bennet. She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who is very pretty. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.
DARCY
Who do you mean? (BEAT, AS HE LOOKS BACK AT ELIZABETH.) She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.
CHARLOTTE
Poor Lizzy. To be only just tolerable. But one cannot wonder that so very fine a young man with family, fortune, everything in his favor, should think highly of himself. He has a right to be proud.
LIZZY
That is very true, Charlotte. And I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
(MARY, OVERHEARING, JOINS THEM.)
MARY
Pride is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that human nature is particularly prone to it. Pride and vanity are very different things, however. (CHARLOTTE AND LIZZY EXIT, WITH MARY FOLLOWING, STILL TALKING.) Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have other think of us. Self-esteem, on the other hand—
NARRATOR
In spite of the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy Mrs. Bennet was in transports. Jane had been much admired by Mr. Bingley.
(JANE AND LIZZY ENTER, IN INTIMATE CONVERSATION.)
JANE
He is just what a young man ought to be...sensible, good humored, lively—
LIZZY
He is also handsome, which a young man ought to likewise to be, if he possibly can.
JANE
I was very flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not expect such a compliment.
LIZZY
Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. Well, he is certainly very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.
JANE
Dear Lizzy!
LIZZY
Oh! You are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody.
JANE
I always speak what I think.
LIZZY
I know you do; and it is that which makes me wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies of others! And so, you like Miss Bingley too, do you? Her manners are not equal to his.
JANE
Certainly not—at first. But she is a very pleasing woman when you converse with her.
(LIGHTS DOWN ON LIZZY AND JANE. UP ON THE BINGLEY PARTY.)
MISS BINGLEY
What a dull, tedious, insupportable evening that was. And the conversation...really, there was hardly a person worth speaking to—do you not agree, Mr. Darcy?
MR. DARCY
There was no one worth speaking to.
MR. BINGLEY
Well, I never met with pleasanter people, or prettier girls in all my life. Come, Darcy. You must admit the elder Miss Bennet to be an angel.
MR. DARCY
She is certainly pretty. But she smiles too much.
MISS BINGLEY
A sweet girl. Though the mother is atrocious. And her uncle is in trade.And she has another uncle, an attorney, who lives somewhere near Cheapside. (LAUGHING.) Isn’t that capital!
MR. BINGLEY
If they had uncles to fill all Cheapside, it would not make them one jot less agreeable.
MR. DARCY
But it would very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world.
MR. BINGLEY
Really now—
MISS BINGLEY
Oh, Charles—all are agreed that Miss Jane Bennet is a paragon. Indeed, I quite look forward to meeting her again. One must entertain oneself somehow.
(UNDER THIS NEXT, BALLROOM MUSIC UP FOR THE SECOND BALL. ENTER ALL, WITH BINGLEY AND JANE, IN DEEP CONVERSATION.)
NARRATOR
It was generally evident, whenever Bingley and Jane met, that he did admire her. And it was equally evident to Elizabeth that Jane was in a way to be very much in love. It was at the home of Sir William Lucas, where a large party was assembled, that she related this observation to Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE
Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.
LIZZY
But Charlotte, she does help him on...as much as her nature will allow. If I can perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton indeed not to discover it too.
CHARLOTTE
He does not know Jane's disposition as you do.
LIZZY
True. And as yet, she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight.
CHARLOTTE
Well, I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him tomorrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelve-month. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance, and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.
LIZZY
You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act this way yourself.
NARRATOR
Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attention to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; and when next they met—
DARCY
He looked at her only to criticize.
NARRATOR
But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face—
DARCY
Than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression in her dark eyes.
SIR WILLIAM
Ah, Mr. Darcy! You are most welcome sir, to my humble abode. There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.
DARCY
Certainly, Sir William; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance.
SIR WILLIAM
But Miss Eliza—why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner.
LIZZY
Indeed sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.
DARCY
I would be most obliged if you would honor me, Miss Elizabeth.
LIZZY
Truly sir, I do not mean to dance.
SIR WILLIAM
You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour?