Jane & Company Presents Lizzy, Darcy & Jane

Does the author direct her characters’ destinies . . . or is it the other way around? When Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and Lady Catherine take the stage, all bets are off.
Uncovering the fiery side of a not-so-gentle Jane Austen, Lizzy, Darcy and Janeexplores the interplay between Jane Austen’s life and work, and probes her crackling relationship with the uncompromising heroine of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet. Heady with her first taste of love, young Jane Austen creates the feisty Elizabeth in an exuberant moment of inspiration. But when her real-life romance sours, Jane sentences her alter ego to marry the odious Mr. Collins, and sentences herself to a suitor no less ill-matched. The fates of the heroine, the novel, and the author are at stake. Elizabeth Bennet must take action.

While recent films and television programmes about Jane Austen are structured as naturalistic, biographical narratives, Lizzy, Darcy and Jane creates a world in which historical and fictional characters vie for position on stage, as Jane Austen’s external and inner worlds collide. Lizzy, Darcy and Jane offers a dramatically different take on an author-and heroine we all think we know so well.