In the unique setting of Chawton House Library, award-winning actor Emerald O’Hanrahan will take to the stage in a costumed recital-performance that celebrates the variety and wit of Jane Austen’s writings.
Jane Austen at Home captures Austen’s intelligence and warm-heartedness and exhibits much of her perceptive and often satirical observation of the social life of English country families.
Producer Jeremy Musson explains the inspiration behind the production.
Our Jane Austen recital performance grew out of a chance conversation over coffee after church one Sunday in Cambridge, about the extraordinary veracity of Jane Austen’s writings and the sense that the modern reader feels a very direct link with the domestic world of the Regency country house through her novels.
I was then looking to put on a show to raise funds for the restoration of a Regency country house of which I am a trustee – and also had written about Austen and her experience of architecture and country house life. My acquaintance Steve Siddallis a literature expert and an experienced director of shows that explore literary themes.
We especially wanted to include material about life in country houses, so Steve and I met to discuss the subjects to be covered in a series of performed readings by a costumed actress; Steve made a final inspired selection of readings which mixed the familiar with the unfamiliar, the letters, juvenilia and selections from the novels.
The mixture is very unexpected, as it splices up the real and the imagined and follows a line through Austen‘s life – the audience is moved to both laughter and to sadness. Steve had worked many times as a director with the talented rising star Emerald O’Hanrahan who studied at the Bristol Old Vic, and in 2009 won the BBC Carleton Hobbs bursary award for the best voice to leave all drama schools in that year. She is the current voice of Emma Grundy on The Archers on BBC Radio 4. Steve felt that she would be the perfect Jane – and she is.
She moves brilliantly, seamlessly between the different genres represented in the selection, at some moments like a young girl, at other moments she is Emma or Lizzie Bennet, or Austen as a mature woman. The show is not chronological through her life, so it is more a celebration than a biography. The chronological bit is the ‘running gag’ of selections from her History of England.
After the first recital-performances, we realised that we had created something which caught the imagination of audiences and Emerald’s sparkling performance has grown even deeper and richer with every show, the recital-performance has been to a number of schools and literary festivals, and to country-house drawing rooms and great halls. The set is deceptively simple, two tables, two chairs and a candle, but through the words of Austen and the talent of Emerald, they create a whole world. You feel you are with Jane Austen as she drafts our acts out these passages or writes or performs her juvenile writings for the amusement of her family, or drafts or reads the moving letters from key moments in her experience.
Distinguished columnist A.N.Wilson, who saw the show at Doddington Place in Kent this summer, wrote: “Emerald O’Hanrahan is a performer of such intelligence, grace and wit that she brings to life, not only some of the most memorable characters in the novels, but also the figure of their creator – Jane Austen herself. She is by turns, hilarious, beguiling and extremely moving”.
Nick Warburton, the playwright and screenwriter, saw the first performance and wrote afterwards: “It sparkles with charm and delight. Through Emerald O’Hanrahan’s wonderfully virtuoso and engaging performance we are brought Austen’s scintillating wit as well as her warmth and humanity”.
We are all completely delighted and honoured to have the opportunity to bring the show to Chawton House Library, the centre for the study of early women’s writing, the historic home of the Knight family and thus Austen‘s brother, Edward, a handsome mellow English country house which Austen herself knew well in her own lifetime.
Jane Austen At Home will be performed at Chawton House Library on Saturday, 4 October, with a matinee at 2pm (tea, coffee and cake served at 1.30pm) and an evening recital at 6.45pm (wine and canapés served at 6.15pm). Tickets cost £15.00 (or £12.50 for students or friends of Chawton House Library) from Eventbrite or call Chawton House Library on 01420 541010.