Review of Northanger Abbey at Pear Avenue Theatre
Director Rebecca J. Ennals has staged Pear Avenue artistic director Diane Tasca’s adaptation of the novel in a manner similar to the way shows are done by San Francisco’s highly successful company Word for Word.
That means that the stage script for “Northanger Abbey” contains not just dialogue, but a large amount of non-dialogue narration taken directly from Austen’s text. The art of staging a script like this includes assigning these sentences of non-dialogue narration thoughtfully to specific actors, so that they end up playing both narrator and character parts, back and forth in quick alternation.
This allows the actors to have many moments when they can shift between playing their characters and playing an omniscient narrator who gets to comment on the character. This creates a rich and dramatic gloss on the text, and opens up a lot of wonderful performance moments. The current Pear adaptation uses this approach effectively.
We would have to see this to decide if it really works, but it certainly sounds intriguing. We believe it would work better on stage than on screen.
The night I attended, one rare discord in the performances occurred when Tilney, sitting after a walk with Catherine and his sister, expressed an almost bitter and rude edge to his manner, which created a false character note.
Oh dear, oh dear…
“We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss Morland. He is not in a sober mood. But I do assure you that he must be entirely misunderstood, if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any woman at all, or an unkind one of me.”
Eleanor is the best sister ever. 
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
As the actor accused of “expressing an almost bitter and rude edge to my manner” and “creating a false character note,” please indulge me a moment of whining in my defense…there have been 4 published reviews of our play, and countless comments from audience members, and ONLY this one reviewer has made any such accusation. I of course allow him his own opinions and his expression of them–one of theatre’s chief values is that it is an experience unique to every audience member. That said, it is my feeling that the reviewer undervalued the dimensions intricacies of Henry Tilney’s character, and misunderstood his wit and the playful relationship he has with both Eleanor and Catherine–in a nutshell, that he kids where he cares. In any case, I encourage you to come judge for yourself! But get your tickets quickly–we’re almost sold out for our final weekend: http://www.thepear.org.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Hey Michael–I was pretty certain I knew to which line he referred, and it’s a misreading of the character and taking offense where none was intended, though of course I’m guessing, not having seen the play (and being on the wrong coast to see it, unfortunately). That’s why I posted the bit about Eleanor saying that Henry was just being a goof. Unfortunately he’s not the first to misunderstand my Henry, and won’t be the last! (He’s my favorite Austen hero, and there’s a few members of Team Tilney hanging around this blog.)
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Thanks for the kind agreement. I really do think we’re all entitled to our own feelings on characters and the portrayal of them, and my own director did warn me she felt I was playing him a bit too sarcastic (as opposed to charmingly witty) in places, so I may be guilty of the accusation in any case. But I like to think that for the most part Henry is a pretty likable and easy-to-relate to Austen Man (certainly in comparison to John Thorpe, at any rate!). I am sure you are already aware that Henry has a fan site all his own (http://www.tilneysandtrapdoors.com/cult/main.html) and is the third most popular Austen male of all, as chosen by visitors to the PBS Austen site (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/austen/menofausten.html), though odds are that this vote was heavily based on the attractiveness of the actors playing them in the PBS adaptations.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Aware of that site? I am the High Priestess of the Cult, kind sir.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I should have known! Well, I’ve been meaning to send that priestess some ‘images of da man’ from our production; I will try to get to it once we close our show Sunday and I have a bit more free time…though now that I mention it, I notice the page to email/contact anyone at that site is down–please let me know if there is an email at which I could send these (you can email me directly instead of posting it here if you like).