Are The Bennet Girls OK?

Casting

LIZZIE — Always right. Very smart, sees through everyone’s bullshit except her own. Not actually the oldest sister, but those vibes. Not skinny.

JANE — Actually the oldest. Kind of soft, very pretty but has gotten fucked over a lot so she’s trying really hard to be aloof and less affected by things. She also has a deep boiling pit of rage that will drag her to the center of the earth if she gets too close.

KITTY — Perpetual middle child, attempting to balance the scales and prevent anyone from jumping off a cliff. Would always rather be in a barn.

MRS. BENNET — High strung, hyperbolic, dramatic, hysterical, all of the most annoying things a middle-aged woman can be that allow her to be easily written off, despite her anxiety and intensity coming from a very keen understanding of reality.

LYDIA — Little bit of a brat and also a baby slut. Hasn’t had any bad experiences, hasn’t had any experiences period, but is horny for attention and also dick, doesn’t fully understand that feeling but that’s what’s going on.

MARY — Loner, loves botany and music but everyone hates her singing and doesn’t understand the botany stuff. Genuinely suffers from chronic migraines, but this emphasizes her out of the loop status. Prefers rules to people.

CHARLOTTE — Lizzie’s best friend, who is less cool than Lizzie thinks. Also not skinny.

GEORGIANA — Darcy’s sister, kind of a bitch.

*DARCY — Kind of a dick but ultimately more loyal than anything else.

*BINGLEY — Kind of a dick but would consider himself a sweetheart, in part because everyone tells him he’s a sweetheart, and in part because he hangs out exclusively with Darcy, who is more obviously kind of a dick.

*WICKHAM — Kind of a dick but in an actively harmful TinderSwindler way.

*MR. COLLINS — Not a dick, just really really weird. Like clips his toenails and keeps them weird.

*MR. BENNET — The very close to death patriarch of the Bennet family. Fucking useless.

*DARCY, BINGLEY, WICKHAM, MR. COLLINS, and MR. BENNET are all played by one person.

Note on Casting
For casting, it is vitally important that Lizzie and Charlotte are not skinny. The way fat people are treated in romantic situations is a major part of the storytelling, and specifically the way Lizzie is treated by both men and her mother is mediated by how they view her body, and what they believe that says about her as a person. The story is not about being fat, but it is a component I am flagging because it is an integral part of the text.

Setting

Time
1803

Place
The Bennet Family Home, specifically the big room in a medium to large house that isn’t really used for anything except when people come over, so it has all the nice but uncomfortable furniture in it: a couch that’s pretty but needs to get a spring replaced, a very old coffee table that’s unusable because you can’t put beverages on it because there are no coasters in the room because there’s no furniture in the room that would be reasonably used to store the coasters. An upright piano that needs tuning but if it were tuned it would be really nice. Big windows that are impossible to clean so they’re not clean. There’s a large main door, and another door off to the side. Mostly for entrances and exits, they use the main door.

For the course of the play, this room transforms to become the ballroom, the dining room, the orchard, etc, but the base state of the room is: expensive appendage.