Marion Johnson has written dramatic adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels Pride and Prejudice and Emma. “Darcy and Elizabeth” was performed at the 2006 London (Ontario) Fringe Festival and voted “Best of Fringe.” “Emma and Mr. Knightley” is a newer piece. These scripts are available for licensing and are suitable for performers as young as high school age, community theatre, or even professional theatre. Licensing information is available on the website. What could be more fun then your own Jane Austen Theatre? (Just watch out for the Henry Crawfords among the company…)

The Dorset Corset Theatre Company has kicked off their autumn tour, taking a production of Northanger Abbey on the road throughout the southwest UK, and the Express & Echo has an article about the production.

Ed is one of two directors of Northanger Abbey, and plays both General Tilney and John Thorpe. He said the show would appeal to the whole family.

“After our last Austen adaptation we had a letter from a family where the youngest was eight and the oldest was 75, and they all enjoyed it,” said Ed.

“We loved classic adaptations but felt they had been a bit too long-winded in the past. We like shows to be an exciting two hours so they don’t feel like a marathon.

“We try to stay close to the novel but it’s a piece of theatre so sometimes you have to be a bit irreverent. It’s in original dress and features Austen’s language.”

As always, if you get to go to any of the shows, send us a report!

The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton is currently staging a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The Edmonton Journal has an article about the production.

As Wood has said, and demonstrated in his wonderful adaptation of Dickens’ Yuletide novella, exposition and narration are Novocaine onstage. What, then, can a playwright make of a full three-book novel whose wry, skeptical narrative voice seems so identifiable? Wood found, to his delight, that “Austen actually has more dialogue than Dickens, that’s my impression: Whole scenes, whole chapters, are virtually all dialogue. And the plot takes place inside the dialogue, moving the action…. The language is incredible, constructed so brilliantly in one sentence. Very hard to paraphrase, and very specific to the characters, to the way a character shapes a thought.

“That makes great dialogue for the theatre,” he says. If times had been different, Austen “could easily have been a playwright.”

We were amused by this bit:

Baker considered, and rejected, two versions. One was Irish, “Jane Austen Lite, it felt like a plot outline,” says Wood. The other one was “everything I hate,” he says — shared narration, enthusiastic unison chanting, etc. “Lizzie’s getting married! Lizzie’s getting married! or “Mr. Bennet’s gone a-hunting!”

(Is anyone else having Slings & Arrows flashbacks? Imagine the theme song for that one…)

The play runs through October 12. Tickets are $35-100 and available online. As always, if you go, we’d love a report!