“Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley”: Written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon. Directed by Jeffrey Lo. Through Dec. 29. Two hours, 30 minutes. $34-$115, subject to change. Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. 877-662-8978. https://theatreworks.org
Review from Datebook Dec. 8, 2024
Fans of romantic comedies know: A question such as “Can one live a large life in mind alone?” is never idle talk. Dare to voice it, and you set off a chain reaction. Within a couple of hours, you shall meet the love of your life and get engaged.
Can’t be helped. You might as well try to be a single man in possession of good fortune and not want a wife. Nature abhors a vacuum and a bachelor.
Both those universal, unbreakable laws of the rom-com genre are in full force in “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley,” Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s sequel to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” And as you watch the holiday confection, whose TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production opened Saturday, Dec. 7, you might find yourself responding to physical laws, too. So solidly constructed is the script, with such keen understanding of how comedy works, that squeals and guffaws erupt from your gullet as surely as if your doctor had taken a reflex hammer to your funny bone. There’s simply no other possible way to react when multiple love letters reach the wrong recipients or when three characters pop out of different corners of the stage to ask the same question in rapid succession.
