The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood. Paula Byrne
Marriage & Midas. The latter will be a fine show for L. & M. – They revelled last night in ‘Don Juan’, whom we left in Hell at half-past eleven … We had Scaremouch & a Ghost – and were delighted; I speak of them; my delight was very tranquil, & the rest of us were sober-minded. Don Juan was the last of 3 musical things; – Five hours at Brighton, in 3 acts – of which one was over before we arrived, none the worse – & The Beehive, rather less flat & trumpery. (Letters, pp. 218–19)
The Beehive was an adaptation of Kotzebue’s comedy Das Posthaus in Treuenbrietzen. Two lovers who have never met, but who are betrothed to one another, fall in love under assumed names. The young man discovers the ruse first and introduces his friend as himself; meanwhile the heroine, Miss Fairfax, in retaliation pretends to fall in love with the best friend. In the light of Emma, the conjunction of name and plot-twist is striking.
Austen clearly preferred the Kotzebue comedy to Five Hours at Brighton, a low comedy set in a seaside boarding house. Her ‘delight’ in Don Juan is properly amended to ‘tranquil delight’ for the sake of the upright Cassandra. Byron had also seen the pantomime, in which the famous Grimaldi played Scaramouch, to which he alludes in his first stanza of Don Juan:
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.24
Scaramouch was one of Grimaldi’s oldest and most frequently revived parts.
In her letter to Cassandra, Jane gives her usual precise details of the theatre visit, even down to the private box, ‘directly on the stage’. Again, the Austens showed their support for the minor theatres, and Henry is arranging trips to the Lyceum. Perhaps he had an arrangement with his friend Mr Spencer to share each other’s boxes at the minor theatres. Being seated in a box certainly meant that Jane could indulge in intimate discussion with Henry – as Elizabeth Bennet does with Mrs Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice.25
As planned, the very next night the party went to Covent Garden Theatre, where they had ‘very good places in the Box next the stage box – front and second row; the three old ones behind of course’.26 They sat in Covent Garden’s new theatre boxes, presumably in full consciousness that, at the opening of the new theatre, riots had been occasioned by the extra number of private and dress boxes.27 The parson and poet George Crabbe and his wife were in London and Jane Austen joked about seeing the versifying vicar at the playhouse, particularly as the ‘boxes were fitted up with crimson velvet’ (Letters, pp. 220–21). The remark skilfully combines an allusion to Crabbe’s Gentleman Farmer, ‘In full festoons the crimson curtains fell’,28 with detailed observation of the lavish fittings of the new Covent Garden Theatre, recently reopened after the fire of 1809. Edward Brayley’s account of the grand new playhouse also singled out the ‘crimson-covered seats’,29 and described the grand staircase leading to the boxes, and the ante-room with its yellow-marble statue of Shakespeare.
The Austens saw The Clandestine Marriage by David Garrick and George Colman the Elder, and Midas: an English Burletta by Kane O’Hara, a parody of the Italian comic opera.30 One of the attractions was to see Mr Terry, who had recently taken over the role of Lord Ogleby in The Clandestine Marriage.
The new Mr Terry was Ld Ogleby, & Henry thinks he may do; but there was no acting more than moderate; & I was as much amused by the remembrances connected with Midas as with any part of it. The girls were very much delighted but still prefer Don Juan – & I must say I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting Character than that compound of Cruelty & Lust. (Letters, p. 221)
Daniel Terry (1780–1829) had made his debut at Covent Garden on 8 September, just a few days before Jane Austen saw him.31 Sir Walter Scott was a great friend and admirer of Terry (who adapted several of the Waverley novels for the stage),32 and claimed that he was an excellent actor who could act everything except lovers, fine gentlemen and operatic heroes. Scott observed that ‘his old men in comedy particularly are the finest I ever saw’.33 Henry Austen showed a little more tolerance than his sister in allowing Mr Terry teething troubles in the role of one of the most celebrated old men of eighteenth-century comedy.
Henry Austen’s faith in Terry’s capacity to grow into a beloved role reflects the performer-oriented tendency of the age. But Jane’s powerful and striking description of Don Juan is a far less typical response. Here a more discerning and discriminating voice prevails. Rather than the performer being the main focus of interest, she is responding to the perverse appeal of the character beneath the actor. The famous blackguard was still obviously on her mind, belying her earlier insistence upon ‘tranquil delight’ and ‘sober-mindedness’.
Jane Austen’s reference to Midas confirms that she had seen this entertainment at an earlier date. Garrick and Colman’s brilliant comedy The Clandestine Marriage had also been known to her for a long time. The title appears as a phrase in one of her early works, Love and Freindship, and, as will be seen, the play was a source for a key scene in Mansfield Park.
Austen was disappointed with her latest theatrical ventures, though had she stayed longer in London she might have been disposed to see Elliston in a new play, First Impressions, later that month.34 When she wrote to her brother Frank, she complained of the falling standards of the theatres:
Of our three evenings in Town one was spent at the Lyceum & another at Covent Garden; – the Clandestine Marriage was the most respectable of the performances, the rest were Sing-song & trumpery, but did very well for Lizzy & Marianne, who were indeed delighted; but I wanted better acting. – There was no Actor worth naming. – I beleive the Theatres are thought at a low ebb at present. (Letters, p. 230)
Austen’s heart-felt wish for ‘better acting’, or, in Edmund Bertram’s words, ‘real hardened acting’, was soon to be realised.
Drury Lane had indeed reached its lowest ebb for some years when it was rescued by the success of a new actor, Edmund Kean (1787–1833), who made his electrifying debut as Shylock in January 1814. The story of his stage debut has become one of the most enduring tales of the theatre. The reconstructed Drury Lane Theatre, rebuilt after it was destroyed by fire in 1809, was facing financial ruin, greatly exacerbated by the ruinous management of R. B. Sheridan, when a strolling player from the provinces, Edmund Kean, was asked to play Shylock.35 Kean, in his innovative black wig, duly appeared before a meagre audience, mesmerising them by his stage entrance. At the end of the famous speech in the third act, the audience roared its applause. ‘How the devil so few of them kicked up such a row’, said Oxberry, ‘was something marvelous.’36 Kean’s mesmerising appearance on the stage was given the seal of approval when Hazlitt, who after seeing him on the first night, raved: ‘For voice, eye, action, and expression, no actor has come out for many years at all equal to him.’37
The news of Kean’s conquest of the stage reached Jane Austen, and in early March 1814, while she was staying with Henry during the negotiations for the publication of Mansfield Park, she made plans to see the latest acting sensation:
Places are secured at Drury Lane for Saturday, but so great is the rage for seeing Keen [sic] that only a third & fourth row could be got. As it is in a front box however, I hope we shall do pretty well. – Shylock. – A good play for Fanny. She cannot be much affected I think. (Letters,