Janeites really do have a sense of humor, you know
…but it’s stuff like this that makes us cranky!
Alert Janeite Amo wrote to tell us that award-winning playwright Laura Wade is writing a stage adaptation of The Watsons, which she describes thus:
Austen never finished the book so I’m imagining how the characters react after being abandoned by her, and they behave pretty badly.
We think this sounds like a lot of fun, not dissimilar to the hilarious Austentatious that we saw last year. But of course the Bright Young Thing assumes that Jane Austen fans are a bunch of uptight dried-up humorless prunes:
The Austen Society probably won’t be pleased. I’m half-expecting to be garrotted by women in Empire-line dresses!
And in another article, she reiterates the point:
That would be more than enough for most twentysomethings but finally, Miss Wade is adapting Jane Austen’s little-known novel The Watsons for West End producer David Pugh. This might prove fatal as “it could get me lynched by the Janeites”.
Uh? Not if your humor is in the style of Jane Austen’s. She’s already funny. You don’t need to make fun of her. That is what makes us angry. Is it so difficult for an intelligent person to grasp the difference?
Of course, some of Jane’s main targets are those who take themselves too seriously. The most successful Austen-related adaptations do not fall into that trap. Just saying.
