FringeReview UK 2024

Northanger Abbey

Orange Tree Theatre in Association with Octagon Theatre, Stephen Joseph Theatre and Theatre on the Lake

Genre: Adaptation, Classical and Shakespeare, Drama, Feminist Theatre, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Live Literature, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Storytelling, Theatre

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre Richmond

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

There’s a reason Jane Austen’s third novel Northanger Abbey from 1798-9 never got a rewrite, unlike its two predecessors. As a satire on a 17-year-old girl’s gothic-fired imagination its scope was limited.

Adapting it though Zoe Cooper finds a refreshing way in that surely not only Austen, but Austen’s younger self would surely have delighted in. Arriving at the Orange Tree till February 24^th on a tour including the Octagon Bolton, Stephen Joseph and Theatre on the Lake, directed by Tessa Walker, Cooper’s injected this satire with the zany high spirits of Austen’s adolescence.

Look no further than her 15-year-old Love & Freindship (Austen’s spelling) with heroines blasted by grandfather’s shotguns and heroes appearing blandly on cue. Mary Elliott Nelson and Carole Bremson incidentally adapted it for Jermyn Street in 1995, faithful to Austen’s story-telling interjections on a small stage.

That’s the teen spirit Cooper’s tapped here too: three multi-roling actors jumping in and out of scenes with twirls of storytelling. Names are pointedly abbreviated.  With Cath (Rebecca Banatvaia), Iz (A K Golding), Hen (Sam Newton), Cooper etches the novel both in fine points – and slants it with lightning.

All three actors exude late 18^th century rumbustiousness teased with knowing subtexts. Chin-hoisted Banatvaia with fire and downrightness, conveying an excitement Cath doesn’t understand, is infectious. Golding is adroitly poised, not as arch as the original Isabella, but sadly knowing Iz, occasionally petulant and often amused. Newton’s often reined-in Hen is counterpoised by Cath’s matter-of-birthing mother and snorting blood John Thorpe.

Asking what animates Austen’s Catherine – her headlong friendship with Isabella, rather than fastidious muslin-expert Henry Tilney – Cooper reframes what fulfils her as Cath. Both emotionally and as a creative being. “Write?” asks astonished Hen(ry).

But write she must. Investing Cath with both more wildness, more agency, Cooper makes Catherine’s “unremarkable family” mantra nurture a northern girl “not quite a full lady” with nods to Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse. Cath veers comically from “unremarkable” reality, especially spooked with her suitor’s family and real gothic castle: Austen satirised polite society novels here as much as gothic.

So Cath’s punching a sexually-threatening officer in Bath raises a cheer, but also recalls Catherine’s tree-climbing tomboy self. It’s doubly transgressive too: not just an un-polite refusal of a heroine to be rescued, it arouses Cath in another way as she shouts to Iz “run” and they find themselves alone.

Matt Haskins’s lighting is almost painterly with castles and ballrooms. Holly Khan’s music and sound, riffing off some late 1960s hits as well as Vivaldi and Bach (rather than say period music) zests the dance of Walker’s direction, with Jonny Riordan’s movement giving lift-off.

Designer Hannah Sibai paints the Orange Tree’s floor and panelling a mildly shocking pink. There’s nothing else but an ever-shifted pile of trunks (morphed to a carriage for instance), a chaise longue naturally, chandeliers that rise and fall with often bewitching effect, functioning like an 18^th century rewrite of the Wanamaker, and latterly an Abbey table.

Where Golding’s Iz almost dancing on it juggles two hats as General Tilney and the insufferable John Thorpe in a seedy inn being seedy. There’s much dancing on the floor too, even if Catherine declares “I am not dancing with anyone. I am dancing near many people.”

Indeed Cooper, whose outstanding plays Jess and Joe Forever (2016), and award-nominated Out of Water (2019) premiered in this space, seems to dance here too.

Cooper’s superb at sketching the actual novel, whilst embellishing Cath’s birth – Newton in childbirth  attended by Golding, and sibling japes. Newton nonchalantly goes out with an axe to coppice trees and pick cherries before giving birth.

It’s at Bath that Cooper shows Cath’s vertiginous arousal. Meeting Iz defines Cath. Chaperoned by family friends – the richer Allens – Cath’s headily exposed to the world. Newton alternates between Iz’s brother, obnoxious snorting John Thorpe – clipping consonants, swallowing vowels and assumptions and crashing a carriage ride to balletic effect – and fastidious Hen.

It’s Hen who ultimately poses the offer of “friendship… certainly the finest balm for the pangs of any sort of… disappointed love.” Poor Hen, stigmatised by writerly Cath “as bordering on the perceptive”, it mightn’t be enough for Cath: “I find myself longing for balls.” All three actors almost twerk double-entendres as they pirouette round the floor.

If Cath wishes to “escape the world, how it works and who we find ourselves to be in it” Cooper shows what Cath comes to suggest as the “imperfect felicity” of what they ultimately choose. The intricacy and care with which Cooper invests Cath is faithful to the novel’s events, other characters, even Iz’s exit as Isabella. She nevertheless interrogates her abbreviated creations.

They also take on griefs Austen invests them with, like bereavement. And there’s sharpening of narrative into dialogue: as with Cath’s retort to Hen deeming the Morlands “quite destitute”. “No…We’re only not rich.”

Out of this Cooper asks again what Cath wants; answering why friendship shouldn’t be the basis of marriage. “And it must not be enough for you either” she declares to Hen.

Quite how Cooper knits this up is intriguing, and needs a few tighter gestures. But its solution, an epilogue, a bookshop, a surprise recognition of a fictional character and an encounter, yields a warmth and generosity of endings. We should fall in love right here. A joyous must-see.

Published January 25, 2024January 25, 2024 by Simon Jenner