DETROIT, MI–Thank Jane Austen for living and writing so long ago that her writing and characters are in the public domain for imaginative writers like Kate Hamill to play with almost 200 years after the words were new.

The Detroit Mercy Theatre Company is currently presenting Pride and Prejudice, the Austen story as adapted and spun by Hamill, and it is a delight.

It’s not your great great great great grandmother’s Austen, though. The thrust of the characters from the original stays recognizable in this version. “Lizzy” Bennett (Katherine Mutschler) is determined to not marry despite all the social and economic pressures to do so. But she can’t help herself from abdicating her initial disregard for Mr. Darcy.

Lizzy, one of four Bennett daughters, are all feeling some pressure to marry well as their Mother keeps reminding them it is necessary for the Bennett family to avoid future economic ruin.

Hamill does an excellent job of keeping Austen’s language and voice. Director Sarah Rusk does a terrific job of taking Hamill’s stage and casting direction and running with them. The playwright stipulates that there should be an equal number of men and women cast, and that the casting should be wide open to non-binary actors.

Rusk and the actors from Detroit Mercy take full advantage and infuse the play with fabulous energy as: Mr. Bennett is played by Olivia Swad; Mary Bennett is played by Luke Adamkiewicz; Miss Bingley is played by Andrew Papa; Lydia Bennett and Lady Catherine are played by  Mason Modzelewski. All those actors have double roles, such as Ms. Swad also playing Charlotte Lucas.

But do not get the idea that this is low-rent drag show. Instead, these actors play their cross-gender roles in the style and spirit of the British stage where it was common and expected that men would play female roles, say in Shakespeare, in costume. Rusk has done an exceptional job of keeping the actors grounded in authenticity that I’d like to think has the likes of Gielgud and Olivier smiling down on this cast from heaven.

I won’t say that some of the male actors in their female costumes do not inspire almost instantaneous giggles. Mr. Adamkiewicz, for example, plays the tubercular Mary, a homely looming young woman with a penchant for skulking and unintentionally scaring her sisters, with excellent timing. The reed-thin Mr. Modzelewski, too, uses physical comedy to his advantage in drawing titters as he infuses Lydia with a bent posture resembling a reverse question mark, and a knowing look of “I know I’m not the pretty one, but I’m going to get what I want anyway, dammit?”

JM Ethridge plays a hilarious Mrs. Bennett—droll at times, manic at times, but always funny. Jade Sibert as Jane and Ms. Mutchler do not get to cross-dress or double up on roles, but they also inhabit their roles with great authenticity.

This is not a criticism, but the “straight” characters of Darcy ( Gavin Rapuzzi) and Wickham (Josiah Martelle) don’t have a lot of room in the production to stretch, and that is fine. With the women in the story all fluttering and fainting, one is reminded of the old theatre axiom: “Don’t just do something….stand there.” The actors do exactly as they should, and hats off to them both for not cracking into laughter when their cast mates are doing their thing in dresses with great aplomb and comic timing.

The scenic design in the Boll Theatre by Alan Devlin is spare, but exactly sufficient to let the actors stretch and work. Just a small piano, chair and table at one end of the stage and a doorway at each end for entrances and exits. Costumes by Mary Elizabeth Valesano are also quite correct for the pre-Victorian story.

This new imagining of Pride and Prejudice is a hoot, while staying true to the original wit of Jane Austen. It plays through February 26 at The Marlene Boll Theatre, located inside the YMCA in Detroit across the street from The Detroit Opera House.