We talk to director Sean Baker about Bawds’ spring production of Laura Wade’s Jane Austen adaptation, The Watsons.
You’ve directed Jane Austen before, back in 2017 when Bawds produced Emma at the ADC. How does The Watsons differ?
The main difference is that Jane Austen didn’t finish The Watsons – she abandoned it about a quarter of the way in. This means the work of a stage adapter is very different. With Emma, it was a case of taking a complete 350-page novel and condensing it to a two-hour play, meaning lots of scenes and some characters were left out. With The Watsons you have the opposite problem. Most of what Austen wrote is in the play, but even that isn’t anywhere near enough to fill two hours, so Laura Wade had to get very creative, very imaginative and very playful.
When you say ‘playful’…
The earliest surviving work by Jane Austen, from her early teens, is considered quite irreverent, anarchic and subversive for its time, especially for someone so young. I read recently that Laura Wade seems to be channelling that side of Austen’s character into her adaptation.
‘Irreverent, anarchic and subversive’ sounds intriguing, but are there also elements that make it unmistakeably Jane Austen?
Absolutely! The ballroom dances, the frocks, the manners, the social etiquette and the Regency class system are all present and correct, as well as very recognisable characters: the spirited heroine, the awkward suitor, the cad, the unsuitable clergyman and the social climber. And her famously witty dialogue of course – in the first quarter of the play, a lot of it is lifted directly from the novel fragment.
I gather Jane Austen took some elements of The Watsons and reworked them in her later, more familiar novels.
Yes, if you’ve read any of her six major novels, you’ll have a lot of fun spotting connections between those and The Watsons, some subtle, some less so. The obvious one, of course, is the name of the main character: Emma. We also have an early version of Mrs Elton, in the character of Mrs Robert Watson, as well as Emma’s invalid father, Mr Watson, later developed to comic effect in the character of Mr Woodhouse. And fans of Pride and Prejudice will see aspects of Mr Darcy in the character of Lord Osborne, as well as Lady Catherine de Burgh in his mother, Lady Osborne. Also, there’s the key plot device of a young woman being sent away to live with wealthy relatives, which was later reworked for Mansfield Park.
Laura Wade has said it took her 10 years to write this play, underlining perhaps the difficulties of adapting and expanding someone else’s unfinished work. Do those difficulties find their way into the play?
Without giving too much away: yes! A key theme is the writing process itself, and you realise, watching The Watsons, that for major writers like Jane Austen and Laura Wade writing, be it novels or plays, can be an exhausting, all-consuming business.
Finally, what can audiences expect from this production?
A lot of laughs and a lot of fun as well as some quieter, more tender, more thought-provoking moments. And some stellar performances!
The Watsons
by Laura Wade
Tuesday 8th April - Saturday 12th April, 7.45PM & Saturday 12th April, 2.30PM
ADC Theatre
Click here to book your tickets!