Plays by Alan Richardson

Universally Accepted

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, 9^th 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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