The Watsons

[Directed by Matthew Chapman, written by Laura Wade, from the unfinished novel by Jane Austen – University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, 1 August 2025]

Claire Tomalin, in her excellent Jane Austen: A Life (1997) wrote: “She…started on a new novel, which she called The Watsons. The first thing that strikes you about it is that it is the story of a group of youngish women – four sisters – who are all unmarried, have very little money, and are casting about more or less desperately to remedy their situation before their invalid father dies, when they know they will be even worse off. For the present they have a home at least; but because Mr Watson is a clergyman they will lose that when they lose him. The parallel with Jane’s and Cassandra’s situation is obvious; and the similarity became more striking. She planned to kill off Mr Watson in the story, only to face the real death of her own father in January 1805. At this point she abandoned the book for good.” (pp. 183-4). The extant manuscript, comprising some eighty pages, is scattered among a museum in New York and the Bodleian, with copious amendments and strike-outs, recalling that Austen, when writing a book, invariably “lop’t and crop’t’ it“.

Which is where English playwright Laura Wade waded in. Austen’s hefty fragment begins in a familiar milieu; Emma, a Regency gal on the point of impoverishment (Imogen Deller-Evans), is confronted with three fairly mediocre suitors; Tom Musgrave, a dandy who likes showing some leg (Thomas Midena); the awkward Lord Osborne (Maxwell Whigham), and the pompous cleric, Mr. Howard (Tom Tassone). Not an appealing choice, but so far, so blah. But then, à la Pirandello, the characters, played largely as declamatory ciphers, cut their marionette strings and challenge the ‘servant’, who is really the puppet-master (Rebecca Kemp), in richly entertaining doses of surreal revisionism.

While it can be argued that playwrights inserting themselves into their play is a tad self-indulgent, a trifle lazy, it can subvert and enliven proceedings in an amusing fashion (Woody Allen did it in his play, God). Characters can come alive, notoriously, they can sometimes cut loose from their creator, and even admonish him/her. Servant, challenged by Emma to write her own stories, admits she preferred writing plays to novels because “I like applause.”

This spectator found the first Act amusing, the second Act calamitous, as the various types ran wild. That great and unadorned genius, Jane Austen, would be spinning in her grave at this subversion, but with a wry chuckle, nevertheless.

[Theatrical photos by Richard Parkhill]