Reviews

Laura Wade has based her play on the unfinished work of Jane Austen with all the instantly recognisable stock characters negating the need for scene setting. The three Watson sisters (Emma – our heroine – Elizabeth and Margaret) are trying to find eligible husbands so they don’t have to live with their brother (Robert) and his boorish wife (Mrs Robert/ Mary). Lord Osborne is the rich, aloof one who is marked out for romance and Tom Musgrave is the cad, “The rogue. Frank Churchill. Mr Elliot. Wickham. Jane Austen likes to put in a young man who’s terribly charming but turns out to be a scoundrel. The heroine never marries him. He’ll probably elope with Margaret or something.”

There are comments on the frivolities of society, such as when Lord Osborne suggests that all women should ride because they look so good on horseback, Emma replies, “My lord, there are some circumstances which even women cannot control. Female economy will do a great deal but it cannot turn a small income into a large one. It cannot conjure me a horse.”

But then the author, Laura, appears and tries to finish the story, incorporating long rambling discourses on the nature of freewill, quoting Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft, with Emma countering, “We don’t need experts, we have hearts, we have minds!” Laura’s absurdist bent makes her admit, “OK, too much research, sorry.” Laura is originally the servant, but she breaks out of character when ‘her’ characters overstep their bounds. Emma is devastated to learn that she’s not real, but Laura attempts to reassures her, “You’re the heroine. It’s your story, so that’s good.”

The characters all soon go rogue in a direct reference to Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Emma ruminates on the existential nature of imagining death, in much the same way as Tom Stoppard’s characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but without the wit or originality. Talking to her agent on the phone, Laura expounds, “It becomes a play about the difficulty. It’s about what the characters do when their first author abandons them and they don’t see why they should comply with the new writer so there’s all sorts of questions about self-determination, the difference between being a character and a person, it’s all quite crunchy stuff.”

As the play progresses, Wade imagines what the characters would do if they had modern relationship and career opportunities without being constrained by the contemporary expectations of corsets, class, wealth and gender. They crawl in and out of her subconscious, which is like a deep dark forest, or a sinkhole, underneath Mr Watson’s bed, while she tries to force some structure on the enterprise.

The second half is self-indulgent as the writer lectures about writing, and the elements of the author as creator with a god complex. After Laura has killed off Mr Watson, she argues with Mr Howard, the clergyman, who criticises her for being cruel. She responds, “There are sad things in the world as well as happy things. Don’t you spend half your time explaining that – why god lets babies die, lets wars happen?” Emma rightfully accuses Laura of choosing to be a playwright because she likes the spotlight and applause. “This is the only thing you can do that makes you special and you need to be special. One of the special people. You can’t do it by looking a certain way, or by inventing something useful or risking your life on a frontline or being some kind of fastest, longest, highest kind of best so you’ll have to do it by writing.

With post-modernist clarity, Emma accuses Laura, “You can’t even do your own story, you have to borrow someone else’s. Making your bid for posterity by riding on someone else’s coat-tails. Haven’t you got stories of your own?” Unfortunately this question isn’t answered satisfactorily. Laura explains why she feels the need to finish the story: “There are hardly any female writers from this time. She only wrote six books and it’s not enough. So here’s this little bit of a book a glorious gift from this person who knew human folly better than anyone else, who is a friend, a comfort, a gossip, a genius, who’s hilarious and heartbreaking, cynical and romantic, a better storyteller than I’ll ever be and I’m here to fucking honour her.” The success of the play depends on buying into the Austen industry and the belief that Jane Austen is one of the best ever authors – if that is doubted; then the play simply falls apart.

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4.0

I love Jane Austen and that's why I was intrigued to read a play about her unfinished story [b:The Watsons|1880157|The Watsons|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1476696544l/1880157._SY75_.jpg|313672]. I've read the Watsons many years ago and can't say how accurate the beginning of the play is but it felt quite coherent from the language and atmosphere. I like that Laura Wade didn't simply finish the story one way but added a twist to it. I don't agree with all character's choices (some seemed quite far-fetched) but I liked the play as a whole and would I live in London, I'd go to see a performance for sure (Menier Chocolate Factory, Sept 20th to Nov. 16th 2019).

N.E.W.T.s 2019: Divination A: Read a white book.

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