Lizzie Bennet...

Reflecting on my recent learning about drama, I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about one of my favorite productions of the last year. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is, as you might have guessed, based on Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. So what makes it drama? Well for one, it's not any ordinary production. It's...brace yourselves... a YouTube webseries. The show is a modern day adaptation of the novel presented in vlog format from Lizzie's perspective.



The original concept was created by Hank Green, who then enlisted the help of Bernie Su. Together they created a team of writers for the show, and cast the actors needed for the first episodes. The entirety of the series was funded solely from the revenue created by YouTube advertisements (which means almost everyone was underpaid, and worked for the project mostly because they were passionate about it). As the show gained success, the team cast the next actors needed, wrote the new episodes, and so on. The episodes aired twice a week for a year, beginning in April 2012 and ending in March 2013.

So what made this series special, not to mention successful, in a genre that had basically never been attempted before? It's hard to pinpoint everything that makes it work. For one, the writers did spectacular work with the character development, and every important event from the novel is adapted in a way that makes it realistic to our modern day time frame. Lizzie is a twenty-four year old finishing her last year of grad school, and Darcy is the CEO of a successful new media company. And of course the series is quirky in its own right. Lizzie Bennet uses costume theater to portray anyone and everyone she interacts with, including her own sisters, their love interests, and even Catherine DeBourgh. The end result is hilarious, and gives the viewers a connection to the characters by seeing them through Lizzie's (of course biased and prejudiced) eyes.

I watched the series as it aired each week, and it took me about twenty episodes to be truly dedicated to the story. But after that, I was completely hooked.

An episode screencap of Charlotte, Lizzie, Lydia, and Jane