Ms. Darcy

I knew it would be a unique experience, going to see our granddaughter perform in her high school production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. 

I expected to suffer. The tiny folding chairs, elbow to elbow, leg cramps familiar to those in their eighties, etc. But our granddaughter played two quite different character parts, stealing the show. 

The play opened with many young actors milling on stage. I'm not sure why. I couldn't tell which one was Elizabeth (protagonist) or her counterpart, Mr. Darcy. 

One oddly prominent character seemed to be Mr. Darcy's sister, dressed in heels and a long black skirt. In earlier versions I'd seen, Darcy's sister had played a minor role, but in this version things seemed to revolve around her.  

Then, about a third of the way through the play, my wife whispered that the sister might actually be Darcy himself. It turned out that Darcy was a woman and Elizabeth was a lesbian.

We had gone to the play with a young lesbian couple. They'd been watching a little glumly, but now they broke into broad smiles. 

Backstage, my granddaughter told me later, some of the cast got into a big fight, and Darcy began to cry. In the scene where Darcy asks Elizabeth for her hand in marriage and gets rejected, Darcy took it harder than usual and stumbled out of the room weeping. 

Not long after that, Elizabeth was asked to play the piano to amuse a rich woman. With remarkable foresight, she pounded out Beethoven's ODE TO JOY, which he had written only 15 years after Jane Austen's death. 

Which goes to show that there is always a new way to look at things.