Mr. Wickham (Adrian Lukis), barred from his bedroom by his wife, soothes his nerves with a drink.
Jane Austen’s work has never been an easy read, but in the way she weaves her characters’ complex personalities into her novels she attempts to provide the reader a window into their early 19th-century English culture. Yet perhaps because of cultural and linguistic norms of the time, some characters are not easily accessible. Writers Adrian Lukis and Catherine Curzon jointly explore George Wickham in Being Mr. Wickham, giving the audience a social, parlor-like closeup—an almost intimate one—of the very man whom Austen vilifies in Pride and Prejudice.
In a remarkable solo performance, Lukis, deftly directed by Guy Unsworth, portrays the debonair and charmingly nefarious Wickham, who seems to revel in the audience’s exclusive attention. He has an almost obsessive desire to be liked, or at least to be perceived in a more positive light than Austen’s protagonists would paint him. After all, he is a gambler, a womanizer, an adulterer, and of low birth—the latter, which, in English society of the day, is a black mark in itself.
Wickham reminisces about the indiscretions and pranks of his youth. Photographs by James Findlay.
But wait—doesn’t the man deserve to convey his side of the story? Shouldn’t he explain how, despite his disadvantage from birth, he was liked by Pemberley’s master, Mr. Darcy, and disliked by goody-goody Fitzwilliam Darcy, and spurred by this to make mischief by his competition with the latter? Make mischief he does, at least from age 7 onwards, and he often gets away with his pranks. This begs questions.
Can an officer in His Majesty’s service be so unscrupulous as to abscond with an innocent teenage girl, or take the money he is given as a payoff for stepping down as vicar and immediately squander it at the gaming table? Rather than expressing shame at his duplicitous behavior, Wickham seems to relish the notoriety. Whether casually reclining in his parlor chair, drink in hand, walking to the decanter to refill his goblet, or running to the window to spy on a lover’s tryst and elopement, he takes the audience into his confidence.
Wickham eagerly shares his retrospective from the outset. It is his 60th birthday, and he acknowledges, with palpable sadness, the ravages of age and mortality.
Who’d have thought George Wickham would reach the ripe old age of sixty? ... But here we are … pegs loose in the mouth, the thinning hair, belly cascading over the breeches … but still very much alive! I’m told I could pass for forty.
Despite his reluctant nod to his advanced age (for that era), Wickham is annoyed at being locked out from his own bedroom (on his birthday, no less) by his wife, Lydia, who is in a jealous rage over his alleged attention to another woman. Thus spurned, he resigns himself to this fate with alcohol to comfort him.
He contemplates the death of legendary courtesan Harriette Wilson. Wickham fantasizes about meeting Wilson face to face and her intentions when she drops her handkerchief in front of him. He admits, lamentably, that she is gazing into the eye of the rakish poet Lord Byron, who was standing behind him.
Wickham recalls his life as a foil to the incorruptible Fitzwilliam Darcy, the hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
In another rare moment of even greater mournful reflection, this time on the casualties of war, he recalls the death at Waterloo of his close friend Denny, who dies instantly, right beside him, after being struck in the throat by a musket ball.
With a twinkle in his eye, Lukis’s Wickham gives the audience pause. He is so elegant in his air, so transparent about his transgressions and so good-naturedly humorous about his many liaisons and those of others that one wonders if he does so for shock value. His is an unabashed litany of foibles, except—a big except—for his intermittently introspective musings about death and growing old, interspersed among his exploits.
Designer Libby Watson has arranged the Georgian sitting room, with its colorful furniture, high ceilings, mirrors, and windows, so that Lukis’s Wickham, elegantly dressed in waistcoat and cravat, can traverse the room with grace and recline just as gracefully. Lukis’s superb command of his body as a dramatic instrument, and his split-second change of mood and non-verbal language speak volumes, far more than the script alone can do. He is a consummate actor, whose nuanced gestures and facial expressions vary beat by beat. Only such an artist can sustain a monologue of nearly an hour, with all the physicality that the role entails. It is a fitting innovation for Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that Being Mr. Wickham selects one controversial character and expands on that character in fine detail. Lukis and the creative team have breathed life into Wickham, with finesse and sublime artistry.
Being Mr. Wickham runs at 59E59 Street Theaters through June 11. Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:15 with matinees at 2:15 on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call 646-892-7999, or email the box office at boxoffice@59e59.org.
Playwrights: Adrian Lukis & Catherine Curzon
Director: Guy Unsworth
Designer: Libby Watson
Lighting Designer: Johanna Town
Sound Designer: Max Pappenheim
