University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre. 3 Aug 2025
For all the Jane Austen films, plays, television series and adaptation/homages around (we’ll include Clueless, Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies here), you’d think she was one of the more prolific writers in literary history. There are in fact, just the six extant novels, which have been in continuous print since 1833. Along with the bangers like Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (now possibly as famous for that Colin Firth wet shirt scene as for the text itself!), there are letters (subject of a current television series) and shorter writings, and now there is The Watsons (1804). Along with Sanditon (1817, the plot of which has more than a passing resemblance to Bridgerton), it’s an unfinished work, hence not so well known outside the scholarly and literary worlds.
The Watsons unfolds in accepted Austenian style. Emma Watson (Imogen Deller-Evans), the cash-strapped heroine, returns to the family home after having spent years with a wealthy relative. There she finds her elder sister Elizabeth tending to their ill clergyman father, while sisters Penelope and Margaret tend to themselves. There’s nothing for it but to find a husband, with a good living of course. In this she must compete with sisters Margaret and Penelope, who require husbands of their own.
There are a few possibilities; Lord Osborne (Maxwell Whigham) is the most obvious choice as he has both wealth and title; Mr Howard (Tom Tassone), the local vicar and Tom Musgrave (Thomas Midena), the local cad. They all come together at the local ball and the next day, well, then it goes all rather awry as the original eighty pages come to an end.
Playwright Laura Wade has taken a left turn in writing this ‘completion’ of the original manuscript. The fourth wall breaks, and the playwright is now a character. Played brilliantly by Emma Kemp, the playwright inadvertently reveals herself when a plot line goes wrong; before long all the characters are aware of her presence, and the frustration and mayhems spills over from play to reality, from past to future.
Director Matthew Chapman has worked his large cast and the set with a deft hand. Such are the twists and turns in this production, it could easily have lost its way and descended into confusion (the Napoleon scene did have a bit of a wobble) but the ensemble work was to be lauded here. Occasionally, the Regency characterisations are a little forced and forceful and not really suited to the ‘manners’ of the time, but that is a minor quibble.
Through the playwright’s conversations, Wade acknowledges that she was influenced by Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and in exploring this device, she also brings the Enlightenment philosophers into the frame—John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are all discussed—as the characters search for identity. In this it appears Wade also wants to position Austen and acknowledge some of the thinkers that would have influenced her writings. Added to this is Mary Wollstonecroft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and it is clear that Wade wants to place Austen firmly beyond the ‘bonnet drama’, exploring the intellectual and feminist underpinning of her works.
The transition of the characters from Austen to Wade is embraced by the cast; Deller-Evans infuses her Emma with both righteous anger and despair, Lindy LeCornu’s Lady Osborne is a sapphic delight and Maxwell Whigham manages to keep his Lord Osborne on an even keel with the most delightful expressions.
Frederick Pincombe’s Charles Howard is a bit of a scene stealer; his despair at finding out that he will be forever ten years old is palpable. Rebecca Kemp (disguised as Servant) is a wonderful playwright, swinging between wanting to remain true to Austen, true to herself as writer, or to allow the characters to become what they believe they should be. And there, my friends is the ending that Austen was unable to finish. Which ending? Now, that would be telling…
Arna Eyers-White
When: 1 to 10 Aug
Where: Adelaide University Theatre Guild
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