A
Portrait of Jane Austen
Based on
many
of the excellent biographies available, particularly A Memoir of Jane Austen
by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. Jane Austen's own surviving letters
also provided wonderful material. Extracts include Sense and Sensibility,
Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Emma. Devised to be staged as a rehearsed
dramatised reading by a flexible team of performers, scripts are used, but some
passages are best memorised. There are many opportunities for imaginative
movement and action. Period costume would be a colourful option. This script is
available in two versions with running times of 80 minutes and 1 hour 40
minutes.
Universally Acknowledged was specially written for the author's own
drama group and played to sell-out audiences for a week when it was premiered at the 2004 Edinburgh
Festival Fringe.
Sample Scene
(Note: NAR =
Narrator. FR1 = First female reader. FR2 = Second female reader. FR3 = Third
female reader.)
NAR
It is
Saturday, 9th January, 1796. The twenty year old Jane writes to her
sister:
FR1
“I am
almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved”.
NAR
Her
“Irish friend” was Tom Lefroy, a visitor to Hampshire, who had completed a
degree at Dublin and was about to study law in London.
FR1
“Imagine
to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and
sitting down together. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young
man.”
NAR But
she did have a problem with his dress sense.
FR1
“His
morning coat is a great deal too light”.
NAR
By the
following Thursday, she had high hopes.
FR1
“I rather
except to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall
refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white Coat”.
NAR
But,
the next day, she wrote to her sister:
FR1
“At length the Day is
come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, & it will be over —My
tears flow at the melancholy idea”.
NAR
Tom’s studies were
financed by a rich great-uncle who was alarmed at the prospect of a marriage
with a penniless girl, and he was quickly sent packing to London. He became a
successful barrister and returned to Ireland to do the right thing. He married
an heiress.
Jane
Austen’s letters, mostly to her sister, Cassandra, provide a fascinating
glimpse of her everyday life. It may seem strange to us that so many letters
were exchanged by sisters who lived under the same roof, but social visits were
a regular feature of their life, and when either sister was away from home,
correspondence followed. Jane’s letters covered topics such as the weather.
FR3
“What dreadful Hot
weather we have! ― It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance.”
NAR
And family health.
FR2
“My Aunt has a very
bad cough; do not forget to have heard about that
when you come.”
NAR
There was news about
births.
FR2
“I give you joy of our
new nephew, and hope if he ever comes to be hanged it will not be till we are
too old to care about it.”
NAR
And deaths.
FR3
“Mr. Waller is dead, I
see ― I cannot grieve about it, nor perhaps can his Widow very much.”
NAR
New acquaintances to
meet.
FR1
“If Miss Pearson
should return with me, pray be careful not to expect too much Beauty.”
NAR
And gardening hints.
FR2
“I will not say that
your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.”
NAR
The hazards of staying
away from home.
FR3
“You express so little
anxiety about my being murdered under Ash Park Copse by Mrs. Hulbert’s
servant, that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not.”
NAR
The latest gossip.
FR1
“Mr. Richard Harvey is
going to be married; but as it is a great secret, & only known to half the
Neighbourhood, you must not mention it.”
NAR
And scandal.
FR3
“Lord Lucan has taken
a mistress.”
NAR
And being scandalous.
FR2
“Mrs. Hall of
Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she
expected, oweing to a fright. ― I suppose she happened unawares to look at
her husband.”

The cast of the first production by the Mercators.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2004.
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