The Pride and Prejudice Show
Posted on Saturday, 10 April 2004
* applause*
Introduction by host: Good morning everyone. Welcome to our show. I’m Jane Austen and you’re watching The Pride and Prejudice Show, the show where we bring guests together, albeit reluctantly, and attempt to resolve any issues involving…?
Audience: Pride and Prejudice!
Jane Austen: That’s right folks, and today is a special show. It will be full of confessions and even a few surprises. We will be focusing on the relationships between families, friends, and lovers. Someone close to this family (who will remain anonymous) has asked that they come on the show to resolve their issues. With us today is the Bennet family.
* applause*
Jane Austen: Thanks for being here with us today. I know that not everyone is in high spirits, but our goal is to talk things out, release our emotions, and most of all, rid our relationships of…..audience?
Audience: (shouting) Pride and Prejudice!
Lydia Bennet: (snorts)
Lizzy Bennet: (loud whisper) Lydia!
Jane Austen: (laughing) Yes, that’s right. To better understand their situations, let’s get to know each guest and their troubles. We are going to start with Mr. Bennet. Hello and welcome! Thanks for bringing your family to the show. Tell us what the problem is.
Mr. Bennet: Right, well, let’s get this over with. This is…this is….that is to say, this is...
Mrs. Bennet: (in a high-pitched, shrilly voice) His wife!
Mr. Bennet: (chuckles) Yes, uh, that’s right, (mutters)unfortunately. And next to her is my eldest daughter Jane, then Lizzy, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. You see, if my wife and three youngest daughters weren’t so silly and ignorant, we wouldn’t have a problem. Lizzy, on the other hand, has more wit than all of them put together. I’m sorry she even has to be here. It’s an insult to her intelligence.
Mrs. Bennet: Oh, Mr. Bennet, you don’t even care about my poor nerves! Why do you have to go and make fun of us in front of the whole country?
Jane Bennet: (looks distressed)
Lizzy: (seems highly amused by the whole situation)
Mary: (has her nose in a book, actually, the Bible)
Kitty: (looks around without a clue of what’s going on)
Lydia: (pops a bubble with her chewing gum)
Jane Austen: Oh, dear. Well, let’s move to…
Mrs. Bennet: (interrupting) I’ll tell you how it is. Mr. Bennet does not know what he’s talking about. You see, these five girls should all be married by now. Since Mr. Bennet (glares at him) will have nothing to do with them, except for that brat Lizzy over there, it is up to me to find them rich husbands. Jane would be married right now to a very handsome man, Charles Bingley, but he suddenly moved out of the neighborhood for no reason at all. He broke her heart! I don’t care who Lizzy marries, but she deserves nobody better than herself. Mr. Darcy would do for her, in my opinion, hateful man. All Mary does all day long is read that silly Bible. She’s never going to get a husband like that! And her ugliness doesn’t help, either. Kitty is so clueless. I would be happy to give her away to any man that notices her. And my dear Lydia, can marry anybody she chooses. And he will be very handsome, I’m sure. Right, Lydia?
Lydia: Yes, that’s right, mama.
Jane Austen: You mentioned Mr. Darcy. Do you mean, THE Mr. Darcy who is the richest, most handsome eligible bachelor in the world?
Mrs. Bennet: Yes, (audience gasps) he is Charles’s best friend.
Jane Austen: Well, that’s interesting. We’ll get back to him later. Let’s start with Jane. Jane, do you love Charles?
Jane: Yes, I love him very much.
Jane Austen: And do you know if he loves you back?
Jane: Well, I thought he did, but he left moved away without saying goodbye, and…
Jane Austen: Did you tell him that you loved him?
Jane: Well, no…..not exactly. I was never given the chance.
Jane Austen: Why’s that?
Lizzy: You see, his sister, Caroline, well she’s a !@$%# and doesn’t want Jane to marry him. Mr. Darcy probably had a hand in it, too. They think we’re too poor. Jane, here, is just too nice to admit it.
Jane Austen: I see. Well, Jane, how can we fix this? Maybe he left because he was never told of your feelings. Would it help to talk to him? (Jane nods) Well, we have a surprise for you. Everyone, meet Charles Bingley.
*gasps and applause*
Jane Austen: Charles, welcome. Jane, here, has something to tell you.
Charles: (shyly) Hi, Jane.
Jane: (blushing) I love you, Charles.
Charles: I love you too, Jane.
Audience: Awww!
Jane Austen: Well, it looks like you two have a lot of catching up to do. There is a private limo outside waiting to take you on a vacation to Europe, compliments of the Pride and Prejudice show. Congratulations and I hope everything works out.
*applause*
*Jane and Charles exit*
Jane Austen: Ok, let’s go to Lizzy. Lizzy?
Lizzy: I’m so happy for my sister. She deserves happiness.
Jane Austen: And you don’t?
Mrs. Bennet: Of course she doesn’t. She’s an ungrateful child. She flat out refused to marry Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet’s cousin. I would have two daughters married off by now if it weren’t for her…
Jane Austen: You want her to marry Mr. Bennet’s cousin?
Audience: Booooo! Boooo!
Mrs. Bennet: (to audience) Ah, shut-up. You don’t know what I suffer.
Lizzy: I would never marry Mr. Collins, even if he wasn’t a relation. I don’t love him. And he’s a toad. If I ever marry, I marry for love.
Jane Austen: Well, that’s understandable. It’s not your fault. We have all encountered toads, haven’t we ladies?
Audience: (all the women nod their heads and laugh)
Jane Austen: Well, Lizzy, do you have anyone else in mind? It sounds like there might be a link between you and Mr. Darcy.
Lizzy: Nope. I do not wish to be connected with that man. He is the rudest and most selfish man on the face of this planet. He was very rude to me the first time I met him, and he thinks he is superior to me.
Jane Austen: I’m sorry Mr. Darcy, wherever you are, but there is evidence here of your..
Audience: Pride!!!
Jane Austen: Bingo. Everyone, I’m sorry to say it, but Lizzy has also judged Mr. Darcy and is full of…….audience?
Audience: Prejudice!!!
Lizzy: But it’s all true! And he has ruined the life of a very nice man, George Wickham.
Jane Austen: Who told you that?
Lizzy: Well, Mr. Wickham…
Jane Austen: It seems like you don’t have both sides of the story. Audience, please welcome Fitzwilliam Darcy!
*Darcy makes a grand entrance*
Audience: (all the women start screaming)
Jane Austen: Well, here he is. Darcy, Lizzy seems to have a very wrong impression of you. She thinks you are proud and disagreeable. Is this true?
Darcy: I hope not.
Lizzy: (blushing from embarrassment) You ruined Mr. Wickham’s life. He told me so.
Darcy: You don’t know the whole story. Wickham is a bad man. He seduced my little sister. He lies. He has a lot of debts. He is trying to get back at me for not allowing him to deceive me. He wanted you to think ill of me, because he knew it would hit where it really hurts: my heart.
*collective gasp*
Darcy: You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. Lizzy, will you marry me?
Lizzy: (in a daze) This is all a huge shock. I thought you were the bad guy. I thought you hated me. I thought that you thought that I was beneath you. I don’t know what to say.
Audience: (chanting) Yes, yes, yes, yes!
Lizzy: (looks at Darcy’s puppy dog smile) Yes!
*applause and tears*
Lydia: I have a confession to make.
*silence*
Lydia: I ran away with Mr. Wickham. We are married.
Mrs. Bennet: What? A daughter married, and she’s just fifteen years old! How delightful! So handsome, too!
*Wickham enters the set*
Audience: (boos and hisses)
*Darcy angrily gets up from his seat and goes over to punch Wickham in the face*
*Everyone screams*
Wickham: I’m having no more of this. I’m outta here. Come on, Lydia.
Lydia: Bye, everyone!
*they exit*
Jane Austen: Well, let’s go to the family to see what their response is.
Mary: I have never seen such shocking behavior. I would never act like that myself.
Mr. Bennet: (chuckling to himself)
Mrs. Bennet: Three daughters will be married! Only two more to go….
Lizzy: (oblivious to everything except Mr. Darcy)
Darcy: (oblivious to everything except Lizzy)
Kitty: (looks bored)
Concluding statement by host: Well, that’s all the time we have today. I daresay everyone got what they came for. Mr. Bennet got his amusement for the week, Mrs. Bennet got three daughters married off, Jane got Charles, Lizzy is marrying, for love I might add, the richest man in the world, Mary got ahead in her reading of the Bible, Kitty wins the prize for the only person to not saying anything at all on a talk show, and Lydia got her handsome husband and attention. What an eventful episode. I’m glad that this family has worked out SOME of its glitches. So, there is some good that came out of all that miscommunication, after all. As Darcy and Lizzy have demonstrated to us today, don’t be quick to make judgments of other people. A happy world is a world without…?
Everyone: (shouting) Pride and Prejudice!
*applause*
*rolling credits*