| There is more than one instructive
aspect to the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice directed by
Simon Langton, but I shall evoke only one. Jennifer Uhle as Elizabeth Bennet and
Suzannah Harker as her elder sister Jane have managed to develop the appearance of a real
family relationship, a feat frequently lacking in production. Given merely six weeks of
rehearsal, more or less, generally coming together as strangers, how can actors create the
illusion of being members of the same family? Moreover, how do they credibly manifest love
for another character? Oftentimes actors depend upon the lines of the script to convey
affinity or devotion, or in the movies they may depend upon sex scenes. But such
diversions may leave the acting bereft of justified action and authentic feeling. As the
Bennet sisters, Jennifer Uhle and Suzannah Harker attend to each other with care and
consideration. Through the degree and quality of this attentiveness, which Uhle exhibits
to a greater degree than Harker if measure must be taken, we experience their profound
fondness for each other.
The closeness that sets the two sensible Bennet sisters apart from the three younger
silly sisters is based partly on mutual interests: they are both readers (Elizabeth more
so) and are at home in the natural world (Elizabeth much more so). In temperament they are
complementary opposites, somewhere characterized as sugar (Jane) and lemonade (Elizabeth).
Ultimately where they find sustenance is in each other's company. They can talk
together, question each other, draw out one another's feelings, and hear one another's
persuasions. Without words, merely with a glance, Elizabeth and Jane understand each
other. With words, without a lot of touching, Urle and Harker entwine themselves in tender
appreciation. We can believe that these two women have lived a history of abiding
affection. Their faces gleam when meeting after an absence. They have seen, and continue
to see, into each other, as characters and as actor/human beings, and they have found, and
continue to find, things goodly to appreciate. It is by activating a whole realm of
psychophysical actions in relation to the partner – to listen to, to pay attention
to, to attend to, to reach out to, to care for ? that the actor can manifest love for the
partner. |
