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 and the number of players involved can be easily adapted to suit. 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.”  

NAR   By the time of her brief fling with Tom Lefroy, Jane was already working on her most ambitious piece yet, a mature novel titled Elinor and Marianne, about two very different sisters. When their father dies, the sisters and their mother are left dependant upon the charity of the girls’ elder half-brother, John Dashwood and his wife, Fanny. In this scene, John feels obliged to fulfil his late father’s request and provide his poor relatives with three thousand pounds, but Fanny has other ideas.

MR1   It was my father’s last request to me, that I should assist his widow and daughters.

FR3     He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune.

MR1   He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them.

FR3     Well, then, let something be done for them; but that something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider, that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever.

MR1   Why, to be sure, that would make a great difference. Perhaps, then, it would be better for all the parties if the sum were diminished one half. Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes.

FR3     Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if really his sisters! And as it is ― only half-blood! ― But you have such a generous spirit!

MR1   I would not wish to do anything mean. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more.

FR3     There is no knowing what they may expect, but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do.

MR1   Certainly, and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds a-piece. I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives rather than for them ― something of the annuity kind I mean. My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable.

FR3     To be sure, it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But then, if Mrs Dashwood should live fifteen years, we shall be completely taken in.

MR1   Fifteen years! My dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase.

FR3     Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it.

MR1   It is certainly an unpleasant thing to have those kind of yearly drains on one’s income. One’s fortune, as your mother justly says, is not one’s own.

FR3     Undoubtedly; and, after all, you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. I would not bind myself to allow them anything yearly.

MR1   I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father.

FR3     To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself, that your father had no idea of giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I’ll lay my life that he meant nothing further. They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! And as to you giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give you something.

MR1   Upon my word, I believe you are perfectly right.

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

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