PLAIN JANE: A&E'S AUSTEN MINISERIES THRIVES WITHOUT STARS

After snacking daintily on the big-screen version of Persuasion, then devouring the star-powered cinematic treatment of Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austenites, always hungry for more, get to dive into the piece de resistance as the Arts & Entertainment cable network airs the North American premiere of Austenís best-loved work, Pride and Prejudice. Co-produced by A&E and the BBC, this Pride is a six-hour, three-night feast that may set off the biggest wave of Anglophilia to hit the colonies since PBS first showed Brideshead Revisited in the early 80s.

The English themselves certainly loved it. Airing on the BBC in the fall, it was the most popular program in years, causing shops and restaurants to empty when it ran, with some 10 million viewers (a huge number over there) tuning in for the last episode. The videotape, released simultaneously, sold out twice. And this without any genuine stars in the whole cast. In fact, Colin Firth, who plays the prideful Mr. Darcy, may be the most prominent actor here, unless itís Julia Sawalha, who portrays the featherbrained Lydia Bennet but is best known for playing the uptight daughter Saffron on the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Still, neither of those folk is in the class of Hugh Grant or Emma Thompson with regard to fame, and that may be all to the good.

Because without star power, you have no distractions from the story, and itís a good one. Yes, in many ways, itís simply another version of the one story that Jane Austen had to tell--the need for gentlewomen to make a good marriage in order to have any future at all in Regency England. But Pride and Prejudice is that storyís most compelling embodiment, because it features Austenís spunkiest, wittiest, most steely heroine, Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle).

The only completely clear-eyed member of a family of five daughters, one extremely harebrained mother, and a good-humored but passive father, Elizabeth is a practical woman who knows that marriage is a business deal, but who nevertheless longs for romance. The problem for all the Bennet girls is that while they are of good birth, their fatherís estate is ìentailed,î which means that, without a male heir, it must eventually pass to the Bennet'sí cousin, Mr. Collins (David Bamber), a fawning, flattering clergyman. Without good marriages, the girls will have only a tiny income after their father dies. And without an income to bring into a marriage, they will have a hard time finding husbands. Itís Catch-22, long before Joseph Heller.

So when the very wealthy, very eligible Mr. Bingley (Crispin Bonham-Carter) purchases the nearby estate of Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet (Alison Steadman) is determined that one of her girls shall have him for a husband. Mr. Bingley, a pleasant if not terribly deep young man who seems a precursor of P. G. Wodehouse'sís male characters, quickly becomes charmed by all the Bennet girls but particularly by the eldest, Jane (Susannah Harker). Mr. Bingleyís friend and companion, Mr. Darcy, doesn'tít share his opinion. Handsome, landed, prideful, Darcy tolerates his sojourn among the Bennet's--he does not enjoy it.

But thereís something about Elizabeth that gets him stirred up. Sheís a handsome woman, certainly. But much more than that, sheís so self-possessed. A rich, good-looking man can only be intrigued when a woman behaves as if she doesn'tít give a damn for him, particularly when itís a woman who obviously needs a husband. And in Elizabethís case, itís not a matter of playing hard to get. She finds Darcy arrogant and hurtful and lets him know it.

 If it sounds like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn going at it 150 years early, it is, a bit. The difference is that, for about four hours of Pride and Prejudice, poor Darcy--poor Colin Firth--doesn't get to do much except stalk around, glower, and battle with his feelings. It ís a horribly difficult role, made more difficult by the fact that the only other actor to play it on the screen was Laurence Olivier in MGM's big 1940 production, scripted by Aldous Huxley. (There was another BBC TV production in the mid 1980s, but that was seen by so few in the United States, it scarcely counts.) Firth does remarkably well for himself and even manages to make Darcy ís transformation of character in the final two hours seem not too jarring.

The all-but-unknown Ehle, a stage actress, is gorgeously on target as Elizabeth, who must comfort her sister Jane when romance with Bingley goes awry, while also trying to deal with the potentially disastrous consequences of sister Lydiaís foolish romance with a caddish army officer, Mr. Wickham. Ehle has absolutely thoroughbred acting bloodlines--sheís the daughter of the great Rosemary Harris, last seen on screen as Willem Dafoe'sís mother-in-law in Tom and Viv.

Most of all, Elizabeth must cope with her parents, as mismatched a pair as ever there was. Austenís own parents seem to have been fine, outstanding folk of considerable intellectual accomplishment, so it must be assumed the Bennets are purely imaginative creations. Mr. Bennet (Benjamin Whitrow) is a witty sort of gentlemanly slacker who wants only to be left in his library with his books and a glass of wine. Mrs. Bennetís a hypochondriacal, loud, and very foolish woman who nearly destroys her daughtersí chances through her too-obvious matrimonial scheming, then obliviously takes credit when everything turns out for the best.

Which, of course, it does. Jane Austen may have had basically one story to tell, but she told it so well, particularly in Pride and Prejudice, that you can listen to it again and again, with pleasure.

 Updated on 10 Jan 1996