Lauren Gunderson’s Christmas at Pemberley trilogy of plays, the first two of which had their regional premieres at Houston’s Main Street Theatre over previous years, ends with Georgiana and Kitty. This is the first time that the play is being shown in Texas, which has been so well-received that the run, which was planned to have already ended, is being extended to December 23.
Each play starts over the course of the Darcys’ first Christmas married, hosting Elizabeth’s sisters at Pemberley. The first, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, tells the story of shy, bookish biology enthusiast Mary Bennet finding love with a shy, bookish lord, Arthur deBourgh, who also shares an interest in flora, fauna and fungi, who is staying at Pemberley that year for Christmas. There’s even a Christmas tree, a now-recognizable custom which would only be imported to its now-familiar prominence in England (and thus in Anglo-American culture) with the marriage of Queen Victoria of England to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The second play, The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, departs from the ‘Regency-flavored Hallmark Christmas movie’ tone, taking place mostly downstairs in the servants’ part of the house. Wickham shows up to the house, following Lydia and running from gambling debt. The Wickhams ends with a surprisingly modern twist when Elizabeth elects to solve the Wickhams’ marriage problems by ending them with a divorce, allowing Lydia to be free of Wickham’s debt. In the 1817 version of Pride and Prejudice, the best possible ending for Lydia and Wickham was to get married, albeit shamefully. However, in 2021, the happiest ending Gunderson could think of was to extricate Lydia from the marriage.
Georgiana and Kitty, beginning just after the ending of the other two plays (which take place simultaneously), adds a friendship between the youngest unmarried sisters of the two families that we didn’t see in the original book; they’ve even become pen pals. Kitty is moving out of Lydia’s shadow, and Georgiana is beginning to compose music.
Georgiana’s other correspondent, the painfully shy and awkward Henry Gray, with whom she bonded over music, is due to arrive at Pemberley for Christmas, bringing along his school friend, the cheerful and charismatic Thomas O’Brien. Kitty and Thomas, each excellently played by Clara Marsh and Ian Lewis, plan matchmaking schemes concerning their friends, pairing off rather quickly. This leaves Georgiana and Henry to carry the romantic struggles of the play.
Mr. Darcy is protective of his sister as ever, and this splits them for several years in between acts when their shared stubbornness leaves them unwilling to reconcile. However, it is evident afterwards that everyone, especially Lydia, has grown up a bit and settled into their chosen places in the world.
The music-consumed Georgiana is making her living alone, close friends with the capable Catherine O’Brien and her uxorious husband Thomas. When Henry Gray shows up again, still an admirer of Georgiana’s musical and compositional talent, love—both romantic and familial—prevails in the end for a funny, heartwarming Christmas story.
