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Jane Austen Abroad

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Jane Austen and Performance

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Abstract

This chapter studies Austen’s reception outside of England, especially in Scotland, in the 1940s–1950s. I examine how Austen’s work helped define modern Scottish identity and acted as mediator in the peace process elsewhere in Europe, beginning by exploring Austen stage productions in Scotland and then analysing European reading communities (Russia, Germany). The chapter concludes with an examination of Austen’s North American afterlife (onstage, on the radio and on screen) and contends that Austen helped create a sense of collective identity in America’s early heterogeneous society. Original, primary research conducted at the Scottish Theatre Archive (Glasgow) is discussed and photos of Scottish performances are reproduced.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dundee Repertory Theatre Company, Programme for Ambrose Applejohn’s Adventure, an Arabian Night’s Entertainment in Three Acts, Scottish Theatre Archive (STA Bb9), 126.

  2. 2.

    “Edinburgh Theatres: Lyceum: ‘Pride and Prejudice’”, The Scotsman, 27 October 1942, 6.

  3. 3.

    David Gilson records the existence of extracts from Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park in French as early as 1813 and 1815. Full French translations appeared between 1815 and 1824. German translations of Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice were published in 1822 and 1830, respectively. Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 135. (Gilson 1982)

  4. 4.

    In addition, the last four Austen novels to appear in print had been published by the Scottish firm of John Murray, which reinforces the interest in the topic of Scottish Austen examined here. The connection with John Murray, the publisher of literary celebrities such as Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, clearly added to Austen’s literary status (even if the novels were still published anonymously). For instance, Scott’s review of Emma, the main review Austen was to receive during her lifetime, was done at Murray’s request.

  5. 5.

    Claire Lamont, “Jane Austen and the Nation” in A Companion to Jane Austen, 304, 309. (Lamont 2009)

  6. 6.

    See, for instance, the work of Joe Corrie (1894–1968), playwright and miner from the county of Fife, Scotland. Corrie habitually portrays the hardships of ordinary working-class people in plays such as The Poacher (1926) and The Shillin’-a-Week Man (1927).

  7. 7.

    David Hutchison, “1900 to 1950”, in A History of Scottish Theatre, ed. Bill Findlay (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1998), 207–252, 225. (Hutchison 1998)

  8. 8.

    I have not identified any production of Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park or Persuasion in Scotland during the period 1940–1960.

  9. 9.

    Hutchison, “1900 to 1950”, 224 (Hutchison 1998). Hutchison cites various Scottish plays that reflect the debate about the Highlands: J. A. Fergusson’s Campbell of Kilmohr (1914) and John Brandane’s The Glen is Mine (1923), 213, 226.

  10. 10.

    Michael Ragussis, Theatrical Nation: Jews and Other Outlandish Englishmen in Georgian Britain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 14. (Ragussis 2010)

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 1–2. (Ragussis 2010)

  12. 12.

    Hutchison notes the importance of the amateur movement for the creation of a national drama and counts over 1,000 amateur clubs in Scotland in 1937. Hutchison, “1900 to 1950”, 220. (Hutchison 1998)

  13. 13.

    Donald Smith, “1950 to 1995”, in A History of Scottish Theatre, ed. Bill Findlay, 253; Donald Campbell, Playing for Scotland: A History of the Scottish Stage, 1715–1965 (Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1996), 253–308, 122. (Campbell 1996)

  14. 14.

    “The Dundee Repertory Theatre Re-Opens on Sat, 28th December with The Scarlet Pimpernel”, 1940 (STA Bb9), 2.

  15. 15.

    Hutchison, “1900 to 1950”, 218. (Hutchison 1998)

  16. 16.

    “The Dundee Repertory Theatre Re-Opens on Sat, 28th December with The Scarlet Pimpernel”, 1940 (STA Bb9), 2.

  17. 17.

    Postcard by Anthony Hawtrey, “The Repertory Theatre. War Road, Dundee. Manager’s Office, 17th January, 1941”, (STA Bb9), 12.

  18. 18.

    STA Bb9, p. 12.

  19. 19.

    Hutchison, “1900 to 1950”, 243. (Hutchison 1998)

  20. 20.

    I am indebted to Kathryn Kane for her insightful comments on this picture.

  21. 21.

    “Edinburgh Theatres: Lyceum: ‘Pride and Prejudice’,” The Scotsman, 27 October 1942, 6.

  22. 22.

    “Edinburgh Theatres: Lyceum: ‘Pride and Prejudice’,” The Scotsman, 16 November 1943, 3.

  23. 23.

    Angus Calder, The People’s War, 35. (Calder 1969)

  24. 24.

    “Glasgow Theatres”, The Scotsman, 9 May 1944, 6.

  25. 25.

    “Glasgow”, The Scotsman, 1 August 1944, 6.

  26. 26.

    “‘Emma’ has Charm of Old Lace”, Press and Journal, 8 August 1944, 4. (“‘Emma’ has Charm of Old Lace” 1944)

  27. 27.

    “Dame Anna Neagle”, Times, 4 June 1986, 18 (“Dame Anna Neagle” 1986). Gordon Glennon’s case is far more complicated. His name does not appear in the Scottish Statutory Registers, which suggests that he was born outside the country. However, a later article in the Press and Journal insists on his being Aberdeen-born (“N-East Man’s New Play Has Windsor Opening”, 17 March 1970, n.p.). This article mentions Glennon’s brother as Sandy Glennon, which rules out the possibility of his having changed his name for the stage. This evidence suggests that Gordon Glennon was not of Scottish birth, which reinforces my point about the Scottish appropriation of Austen through those involved in the production of Emma.

  28. 28.

    Wilson Barrett, On Stage for Notes: The Story of the Wilson Barrett Company (London: Blackwood, 1954), 52–55. (Barrett 1954)

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 57–60. (Barrett 1954)

  30. 30.

    In correspondence with the African Consolidated Theatres in 1952, Barrett listed Pride and Prejudice as one of their most popular successes in Scotland. Ibid., 241. (Barrett 1954)

  31. 31.

    Campbell, Playing for Scotland, 122. (Campbell 1996)

  32. 32.

    James Bridie, pseudonym of Osborne Henry Mavor, September 1945, quoted in Hutchison, The Modern Scottish Theatre, 101. (Hutchison 1977)

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 103–106. (Hutchison 1977)

  34. 34.

    The Wilson Barrett Company performed Dr Angelus in Edinburgh in March 1949 and Glasgow in June 1949.

  35. 35.

    Performed between 28 August and 10 September 1950 at the Dundee Repertory Theatre. Reviewers praised the atmosphere of the Dundee production: “The sets, particularly the title piece of the third act, are a great help in getting the atmosphere for a delightful excursion into the story-book past” (“Jane Austen Story on the Stage”); “A. R. Whatmore’s production had many adroit moments, and John Burnand’s settings, particularly the second, in which the proper atmosphere was admirably conveyed, well deserved the applause they evoked” (“Dundee Repertory”). Unidentified periodical cuttings.

  36. 36.

    On the long Gothic tradition in Scotland, see David Punter’s “Scottish Gothic”, in The Cambridge Companion to Scottish Literature, ed. Gerard Carruthers and Liam McIlvanney (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 132–144 (Punter 2012); Monica Germana’s Scottish Women’s Gothic and Fantastic Writing: Fiction Since 1978 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010). (Germana 2010)

  37. 37.

    Constance Cox, Northanger Abbey: A Comedy in Three Acts (London: Fortune, 1950), 44. (Cox 1950)

  38. 38.

    Ralph E. Loveless, “Drama and the Schools”, The Stage, 23 April 1953, 7. (Loveless 1953)

  39. 39.

    Ibid. (Loveless 1953)

  40. 40.

    “Youth Clubs’ Austen Play”, Press and Journal, 8 November 1946, 6.

  41. 41.

    “Finding and Training German Teachers”, The Scotsman, 11 February 1946, 4.

  42. 42.

    “A Scotsman’s Log: Dryas Octopetala”, The Scotsman, 31 March 1949, 4.

  43. 43.

    “Russia and British Authors”, The Scotsman, 8 December 1943, 4.

  44. 44.

    “A Scotsman’s Log”, The Scotsman, 5 November 1945, 4.

  45. 45.

    “Men and Affairs: Batista”, The Scotsman, 5 February 1941, 6.

  46. 46.

    Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, 97. (Gilson 1982)

  47. 47.

    Quoted in H. Philip Bolton’s Women Writers Dramatized, 16. (Bolton 2000)

  48. 48.

    Andrew Wright records a performance of Jerome’s Pride and Prejudice with music by Abe Burrows in New York, 1959. Wright’s “Jane Austen Adapted” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 30, no. 3 (1975), 421–453, 444. (Wright 1975)

  49. 49.

    Ellen Belton, “Reimagining Jane Austen: The 1940 and 1995 versions of Pride and Prejudice”, in Jane Austen on Screen, ed. Gina and Andrew MacDonald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) (Belton 2003). The film also gets substantial coverage in Sue Parrill’s Jane Austen on Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Adaptations (Jefferson: McFarland &. Company, 2002) (Parrill 2002); and Deborah Cartmell’s Screen Adaptations: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: the Relationship Between Text and Film (London: Methuen Drama, 2010). (Cartmell 2010)

  50. 50.

    Mary A. Favret, “Free and Happy: Jane Austen in America”, in Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees, ed. Deidre Lynch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) (Favret 2000); Juliette Wells, Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (London: Continuum, 2011). (Wells 2011)

  51. 51.

    Scott Peters, “Changing the Story about Higher Education’s Public Purposes and Work: Land-Grants, Liberty, and the Little Country Theatre”, in Foreseeable Futures: Imagining America, 6 (2006): 18. (Peters 2006)

  52. 52.

    Marion Morse MacKaye, Emma: A Play (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 17–18. (MacKaye 1941)

  53. 53.

    “The Little Country Theatre of North Dakota”, The Vassar Miscellany Weekly 1, no. 19, 18 February 1916, 5.

  54. 54.

    “Programme for the Little Country Theatre”, Emma, 20 May 1941. The Alfred G. Arvold Papers, Box 2, Folder 28, North Dakota State University Archives.

  55. 55.

    Peters, “Changing the Story”, 17. (Peters 2006)

  56. 56.

    “Stenehjem Selected as Lead in ‘Emma’; Show Opens May 20”, The Spectrum 55, no. 27, 2 May 1941, 1.

  57. 57.

    Katie Halsey has studied Jane Austen reading communities in Britain, such as the Darwin and the Macaulay families. She also argues that Austen helped create a bond between those people who came together to read her novels. Halsey, Jane Austen and her Readers, 1786–1945, especially Chapter 9 (Halsey 2012). Along similar lines, Juliette Wells examines how the Jane Austen Society of North America (created in 1979) brings scholars and lay readers together.

  58. 58.

    Peters, “Changing the Story”, 18. (Peters 2006)

  59. 59.

    “‘Emma’—Play and Memorial Tribute by Edith Sabra Dudley”. The Alfred G. Arvold Papers, Box 2, Folder 28, North Dakota State University Archives.

  60. 60.

    “Stenehjem Selected as Lead in ‘Emma’” and “World Premiere Tuesday: Mason Arvold Directs ‘Emma’, MacKaye Play”, The Spectrum 55, no. 29, 16 May 1941, 1.

  61. 61.

    “World Premiere Tuesday: Mason Arvold Directs ‘Emma’, MacKaye Play”, 1.

  62. 62.

    Percy MacKaye, “To Jane Austen: An Open Letter”, Emma: A Play (New York: Macmillan, 1941), vii–xiii, vii. (MacKaye 1941)

  63. 63.

    “‘Emma’—Play and Memorial Tribute by Edith Sabra Dudley”.

  64. 64.

    Mary A. Favret, “Free and Happy”. (Favret 2000)

  65. 65.

    There is no mention of this adaptation in Sue Parrill’s otherwise comprehensive volume Jane Austen on Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Adaptations (Parrill 2002), in Marc DiPaolo’s study of the Emma screen adaptations Emma Adapted: Jane Austen’s Heroine from Book to Film (New York: Peter Lang, 2007) (DiPaolo 2007), or in Marie Sorbo’s Irony and Idyll, which indexes the screen history of all Austen’s novels until 2013 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014). (Sorbo 2014)

  66. 66.

    Helen Hanff, Matinee Theatre Series, Season 2, Episode 266: Emma Teleplay (NBC Matinee Theater, 16 September 1957), section 1, 12. (Hanff 1957)

  67. 67.

    Ibid., section 1, 14. (Hanff 1957)

  68. 68.

    Ibid., section 3, 10. (Hanff 1957)

  69. 69.

    Ibid. (Hanff 1957)

  70. 70.

    Deborah Kaplan, “Mass Marketing Jane Austen: Men, Women, and Courtship in Two Film Adaptations”, in Jane Austen in Hollywood, ed. Linda Troost and Sayre N. Greenfield (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 177–187. (Kaplan 1998)

  71. 71.

    Frank and Virginia Wells, Emma, Series “The World’s Great Novels” (University of the Air/NBC, 18 November 1944). (Wells and Wells 1944)

  72. 72.

    Helen Hanff, Emma, section 3, 16. (Hanff 1957)

  73. 73.

    Ibid., section 1, 25. (Hanff 1957)

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  1. University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Marina Cano

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Cano, M. (2017). Jane Austen Abroad. In: Jane Austen and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43988-4_6

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