January 2012. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

So begins Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the perennial classic about marriage and staple of middle school reading lists. The real beauty in Pride and Prejudice lies in how it exposes the complexity of a union between two people, making the point that marriage is not just a commitment of love or money or property as some would have it, but a complicated bond built of all those things and more, unique to each couple.

No one understands that more than Joanna and Drew Battles, one of three real-life couples performing in Swine Palace’s upcoming production of Pride and Prejudice. George Judy is the director and he’s using an adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan. The Battles play the parts of the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and the difficult Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. We spoke about how early in the book the story makes clear that marriage is a contract to be carefully negotiated.

“Those are the societal implications that are put on them in that era,” said Drew Battles, referring to the couple he and his wife portray. “What I think is great about the story is that it is one where two people transcend that—they have to work at it, and, in turn, hopefully get it right by going through the trials and tribulations that a normal courtship should be to try to figure each other out.”

Nineteenth-century English society and the dynamics therein are played out in the story’s exquisite details, the quivering tension in the language, the formality of dinners and balls, and how one’s behavior is always on display.

“This is the time period where things are starting to take a turn,” Joanna Battles explained. “I think this is the first time where people thought of (marriage) in terms of true love, what makes two people a really good match, not just by societal standards, but by personalities that complement each other.”

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