It doesn’t need to be the holiday season for fans of Jane Austen to crave some kind of modern sequel to her most popular works.
But it is in fact the holiday season — and playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have a gift for all Austen fans in the form of a series of Christmas-season plays featuring the Bennett sisters and their spouses and suitors.
Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Mass., produced the first of these plays, “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley,” in 2017, the year after it debuted at the Northlight Theater in Chicago. The story revolves around bookish middle sister Mary, who finds love with a cousin of Mr. Darcy.
This year’s Christmas show will be the second play based on “Pride and Prejudice.” It’s called “The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberly” — a title guaranteed to make Austen fans gasp with trepidation.
The action takes place “downstairs,” led by the motherly but tough head housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds. Will she manage to keep Mr. Wickham (who of course she has known since he was a child) in line and avoid any flare-ups with archenemy Fitzwilliam Darcy?
Find out in the Tina Packer Theater at Shakespeare & Co. on Dec. 16 and 17 at 7 p.m., Dec. 18 at 2 and 7 p.m. and Dec. 19 at 2 p.m. Get details and order tickets at www.shakespeare.org.
