Northanger Abbey (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Jane Austen.

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 114

Beschreibung

Catherine Morland knows little of the world, but who needs real-life experience when you have novels to guide you? Seizing her chance to escape her claustrophobic family and join the smart set in Bath, she meets worldly, sophisticated Isabella Thorpe – Iz, to her friends – and so Cath's very own adventure begins. This playful and surprising reimagining of Northanger Abbey is infused with the spirit of Jane Austen's original novel and fizzes with imagination and humour. It was premiered in 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, before touring to Octagon Theatre, Bolton, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick. 'Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of any sort of… disappointed love.' 'A smartly playful adaptation that pulses with real passions… it asks big, clever questions about personal agency, authorship and control… Austen would thoroughly approve' - Evening Standard 'Moves at a tremendous clip… the wooing is done with such subtlety and good humour' - The Times 'An incisive adaptation that approaches the tale from a fresh, contemporary angle… exuberantly, unashamedly silly… Quick-fire scenes jump about in time, skilfully picking apart the narrative with flashbacks that offer new context, or cutting away to asides where the characters debate their real intentions… an appealing, intriguingly flawed protagonist… unexpected and intriguing' - The Stage 'A spirited three-hander romp… it's exhilarating, transmuting Austen's daftest novel into something really quite beautiful' - Time Out

Leseprobe

Zoe Cooper

NORTHANGER ABBEY

from the book by

Jane Austen

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production

Acknowledgements

Characters

Northanger Abbey

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

This adaptation of Northanger Abbey was first performed on 20 January 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in a co- production between the Orange Tree Theatre, Octagon Theatre, Bolton, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick. The cast was as follows:

CATH

Rebecca Banatvala

IZ

AK Golding

HEN

Sam Newton

Director

Tessa Walker

Designer

Hannah Sibai

Lighting Designer

Matt Haskins

Sound Designer and Composer

Holly Khan

Movement Director

Jonnie Riordan

Casting Director

Matilda James

Costume Supervisor

Anna Dixon

Production Electrician and Relighter

Gabriel Finn

Dialect Coach

Deborah Garvey

Assistant Director

Namoo Chae Lee

Production Manager

Lisa Hood

Company Stage Manager

Jenny Skivens

Deputy Stage Manager/CSM on book

Jeanette Maggs

Assistant Stage Manager

Jamie Craker

Production and rehearsal photography

Pamela Raith

Thanks

Stuart Burgess and Priya Virdee Lute supplied by The Lute Society, www.Lutesociety.org

Acknowledgements

Lorne Campbell Emily Cooper James Harriman Smith Guy Jones Aoife Kennan Jonathan Kinnersley Tom Littler Jodie McNee Sid Sagar Tom Wells Emma Whipday

As always Marie Stern-Peltz.

And especially Tessa Walker.

Characters

CATH, female IZ, female HEN, male

A Note About the Way that Character Works in this Story

Cath, Hen and Iz were in their late teens or early twenties when the events in Bath and at Northanger Abbey took place.

They are probably not much older than that when they retell their story.

In telling their story they play all the other characters. They also frequently swap roles, take over from each other, contradicting the telling.

A Note on How Dialogue is Set Out in the Script

When characters are telling the story, or talking between themselves in the present, speech is set out without speech marks, like this:

CATH. And in this part I am with my parents.

When a character is speaking to another character in the past, in the story, it is set out with speech marks around the dialogue, like this:

CATH. ‘Mr Mullen says I have to practise, if I am to entertain our guests.’

Sometimes a character will swap modes within a single bit of dialogue. Like this:

CATH. But the point of this part is that I did, on the eve of the anniversary of my previously established violent and dangerous entry into the world, announce a demonstration of ‘…all three of my aforementioned skills together in a grand concert, tomorrow on the occasion of my fourteenth birthday…’

As mentioned, sometimes the characters will play other roles in the story. Character names will be set out with the role they are playing following their own name. Like this:

HEN/MAM. ‘That will do extremely well, our Cath.’

A Note on Text

A forward slash (/) indicates the point at which a speaker is interrupted.

Words in square brackets indicate what is implied but not spoken.

Words in dialogue which are in brackets but not in italics are meant as asides spoken to the audience.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

Prologue

Pre-set: CATH and IZ are in the space as the audience enter.

While they wait for everyone to make themselves comfortable, IZ is trying on some moustaches and sideburns. Maybe she keeps them all in a book, carefully pressed. Maybe she checks the effect of each in a little mirror. At first she does so quietly. But as time goes on, maybe she gets a bit bored and starts being a bit silly. Trying to make members of the audience laugh.

CATH does not approve of this.

IZ tries on an especially silly moustache.

CATH. Iz.

IZ. What, Cath?

CATH. Put / them [away].

IZ (silly voice). What? Do you not like my / moustaches…

CATH tries not to laugh. HEN enters, carrying props CATH has instructed him to bring. She checks what he has against a list. Bosses him about, telling him to bring more, take others away again, etc., etc.

It’s nearly time. HEN starts to put on a pinny.

That is my…

CATH. She is right.

HEN. Then what am I to / wear…

CATH holds up a dress/bump for HEN. He puts it on. Meanwhile IZ puts the pinny on.

They all agree that they are almost ready to begin. They indicate this to stage management.

HEN looks up at IZ, indicates the moustache she is still wearing.

IZ. What?

CATH sees. Indicates to IZ, who pulls it off.

CATH. You must concentrate. Both of you. We are about to…

Lighting change.

(To the audience.) Northanger Abbey.

Act One, Scene One.

My birth.

Another lighting change.

ACT ONE

Scene One

The Birth of an Heroine

HEN/MAM is on all-fours, on a bed.

HEN/MAM. ‘…aarrrrrrrrr…’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘That’s it, Mrs M.’

HEN/MAM. ‘…ghhhhhhh…’

IZ/MIDWIFE (simultaneous). ‘You know what to do.’

HEN/MAM (simultaneous). ‘…GGHHHHHHHHHHHHH…’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘You’re an old hand at this after all, aren’t you.’

HEN/MAM. ‘AAARGGHHHHHHHHHH…’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘So you just take all that pain and push it / down.’

HEN/MAM (ragefully, in IZ/MIDWIFE’s face). ‘GARGHHHHHHHH… ’

IZ/MIDWIFE (raising her voice to be heard over HEN/MAM’s scream).…‘PUSH IT RIGHT DOWN INTO YOUR BUM.’

HEN/MAM stops screaming.

HEN/MAM’s contraction has finished.

HEN/MAM pants.

IZ/MIDWIFE tries to mop HEN/MAM’s brow with a bit of old muslin.

HEN/MAM bats her hand away, annoyed by this pointless gesture.

Through the following, IZ/MIDWIFE tries to help HEN/MAM as she makes her way painstakingly to a chamber pot and wees.

HEN. Because it starts with a plain mother.

CATH. At the end of a very long, quite terrible labour that could very well have killed her.

IZ. But which won’t.

CATH. Leaving the poor child / motherless.

HEN. Which didn’t.

IZ. Kill anyone we mean.

HEN. On account of the plain mother’s unusually strong constitution.

HEN/MAM has finished weeing and is making her way back to the bed.

IZ. And also on account of the attendant midwife, a no-fuss least-said-soonest-mended salt-of-the-earth sort of person, from the village.

HEN/MAM is back at the bed, leaning on it.

IZ/MIDWIFE is in the process of having a look up her skirts. She breaks off to add:

Whose name was Peg, as it goes. (As IZ/MIDWIFE, looking up HEN/MAM’s skirts.) ‘It’s the size of the head.’

HEN/MAM starts to have another contraction.

HEN/MAM. ‘Ohhhhhhhhh…’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘It’s just, well, sorry to say, Mrs M, but really exceptionally bloody massive.’

HEN/MAM. ‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!’

HEN/MAM’s contraction reaches its peak. She goes silent. This is the worst pain she has experienced so far.

HEN/MAM pants through the following:

CATH. And even though this baby is being born to a plain mother and in a plain room like we have explained…

IZ.…and being number three of eight can hardly be considered an auspicious position…

CATH. … nevertheless…

Another contraction begins.

HEN/MAM does a long guttural groan.

HEN, IZ and CATH. ‘Pop!’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘Now that huge great bonce is out, that’s the hard part over with. One final push, Mrs M. Give it some welly!’

IZ, HEN and CATH make a flopping-slippery-birth noise, they enjoy it even more than their head-popping noise.

IZ/MIDWIFE is clamping and cutting the umbilical cord and vigorously wiping down the baby through the following:

‘There we are. All done! Oh look at him.’

CATH and HEN/MAM. ‘A boy?!’

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘It must be a boy…’

CATH. No, it can’t be because we are doing my / birth.

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘Being so exceptionally… bonny…’

CATH (warningly). Isabella –

IZ/MIDWIFE. ‘Oh, no, my mistake… It’s a girl after all. It’s just I assumed it was a boy at first, cos you did only ever produce lads, didn’t you, Mrs M… and also because she is so… like I said, Mrs M… absolutely exceptionally bloody massive, / huge all over, isn’t she?’

CATH interrupts IZ/MIDWFE urgently, to stop her speaking.

CATH. ‘Waaaaa… waaaaa…’

IZ/MIDWIFE wipes her hand across her forehead. Leaving a bloody streak.

All three look at the baby.

Despite themselves, they are in awe.

HEN/MAM. ‘My little Cath.’

CATH. And so, because from these humble…

IZ.…And ordinary and unremarkable…

CATH.…beginnings no one could have supposed Catherine Morland to be born An Heroine…

Scene Two

The Education of an Heroine

CATH starts to play a lute.

HEN/MAM. ‘That’s… a very… emphatic…’

IZ/PA (muttering). ‘Emphatically tuneless…’

HEN. Muttered Cath’s father.

IZ/PA (snorting with laughter at his own joke; simultaneous). ‘Ha!’

HEN/MAM and CATH (simultaneous). ‘Pa!’

HEN/MAM. ‘A very rousing tune you are playing there, our Cath.’

CATH. Because this next scene takes place almost exactly fourteen years later…

IZ. Up a dirt track, near an unremarkable village, in a northern county of this country. In the same plain house which was…

HEN.…actually and in fact…

IZ.…a plain vicarage.

HEN. Not a very old vicarage.

IZ. Nor a very mysterious or very haunted vicarage.

HEN. But instead…

IZ. And in common with all its residents…

HEN.…an unremarkably plain vicarage…

CATH. And in this part I am with my parents.

IZ. Cath’s plain mother, who you have already met…

HEN.…and her father, like we have explained, who was, perhaps you guessed, a man of the church…

CATH (regretfully). And in common with his home and wife also plain.

IZ.…And worse…

CATH (even more regretfully). Named Richard…

IZ/PA continues to visibly not enjoy CATH’s playing.

‘Mr Mullen…’

HEN. (…the Morland’s long-suffering music teacher…)

CATH. ‘…says I have to practise, if I am to entertain our guests.’

IZ/PA (to HEN/MAM, mildly alarmed). ‘Guests? What guests, Mam?’

HEN. Because as well as learning to play the lute, Cath had also, by this age, learned to sing in a tremulous voice…

CATH starts to sing in English.

And to speak French.

CATH starts to sing in French.

It is something operatic with a lot of emotion, which CATH really leans into.

And indeed to sing in such a romantically French voice that should she have needed to, our heroine was confident she could very well have distracted a dangerous criminal, in order that Cath could persuade this dangerous, murderous criminal who might indeed be generally foreign or specifically French, against his terrible purpose in coming to her home…

IZ. Because along with all three of her aforementioned talents…

CATH breaks off to add:

CATH.…Everything we have already mentioned that I had already achieved by this still tender age…

CATH continues singing until…

HEN.…and above all that, Cath was already by this time…

CATH, IZ and HEN.…a girl of quite impressive imagination…

IZ/PA. ‘Mam! What guests?! Because we never do…we don’t ever have guests, do we, Mam?’

HEN/MAM. ‘Oh! She only means the Allans, Pa.’

IZ/PA (relieved). ‘Oh, the Allans.’ (To CATH.) ‘They aren’t guests!’

CATH. ‘Pfffff…’

IZ/PA. ‘Thank goodness for that. I thought I should have to speak to new people!’

HEN. The Allans were a childless couple.

IZ/PA. ‘Lucky buggers.’

HEN/MAM and CATH. ‘Papa!’

IZ. Who were cut from the same plain cloth as Mam and Pa.

HEN. And who lived five fields away, in a house that was not a vicarage.

CATH. And which was a deal grander and a deal…

HEN. Well, slightly…

CATH.…A deal older.

HEN. And unfortunately it did indeed look like they were very likely to be the only people to enjoy…

IZ/PA. ‘Endure! Endure eh, eh, Mam!’

CATH. ‘…the fruits of these, my not insignificant labours…’

HEN/MAM (trying to thwack IZ/PA and trying not to laugh). ‘You naughty man!!’

CATH. But the point of this part is that I did, on the eve of the anniversary of my previously established violent and dangerous entry into the world, announce a demonstration of ‘…all three of my aforementioned skills together in a grand concert, tomorrow on the occasion of my fourteenth birthday to which you all, Mother, Father, my seven siblings, the Allans and Mr Mullan, most cordially welcomed’ and actually all who attended admitted it to be a great success. The opera concert and its culminating aria being especially…

CATH opens her mouth to sing once again…

HEN/MAM. ‘That will do extremely well, our Cath.’

IZ/PA. ‘You have affected us long enough.’

HEN. It was shortly after this that Mr Mullan…

CATH. The last of the tutors to the Morland family…

IZ. In common with those poor unfortunates who came before him…

HEN. Decided that his talents…

CATH. Such as they were…

HEN. Were better exercised elsewhere.

CATH. And it must be admitted that the day that the frankly insufficient and somewhat incompetent music master was dismissed turned out to be one of the happiest days of my short life.

IZ. It must also be admitted that it was one of the happiest days of the Morlands’ lives too.

HEN. As Mr Mullan was persuaded to take his lute with him.

HEN takes the lute from CATH.

Scene Three

The Miseducation of an Heroine

IZ/NIGEL and CATH run up an incline. They are barefoot and dishevelled.

CATH. The top of a grassy verge.

IZ. A little while later…

CATH. ‘Unfortunately Grendel’s mother is a girl.’

IZ. Because since Mr Mullan’s departure Cath and her siblings had been staging a variety of selections from the great chronicles and stories.

CATH. ‘She is a girl and so it is me that has to play her in this part.’

IZ/NIGEL does a whine in response to this…

IZ/NIGEL. ‘Ohhhhhhh.’

CATH. Because being stuck in a northern county of this country and now without any sort of tutor, we were forced to provide our own education.