Jane Austen on the Prison Stage

Abstract This chapter concentrates on one variation of Pride and Prejudice behind bars: First Impressions, performed by incarcerated women at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Centre in Vandalia (Missouri) in 2019. This, the chapter proposes, is a #MeToo-inflected recreation that draws out progressive elements in the novel that resonate with post-2017 feminism. For example, the Vandalia First Impressions adds inset monologues in which the inmate-actors address the audience directly. These monologues often and explicitly call out misogyny and male entitlement while hinting at analogous strands in the novel (e.g., the abuse suffered by Jane Bennet at the hands of Bingley, and more broadly, a Regency society that condones such behaviour). Similarly, ‘unorthodox’ or semi-improvised modes of performance, such as blind casting and an ad hoc wardrobe, emphasize inclusion and solidarity among women in ways that resonate with the #MeToo movement and its international reverberations.