A stage adaptation of an unfinished Jane Austen novel is set to open at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.
Playwright Laura Wade took Austen’s early novel The Watsons, which the author began in 1803 and is believed to have abandoned after her father’s death two years later, and used it as the basis for a brand new story.
It opened at Chichester Festival Theatre last year, directed by Samuel West, with Evening Standard critic Fiona Mountford awarding the show four stars in her review. She described it as part of a “triumphant return” to writing for Wade, who also had a hit last year with another new play, Home, I’m Darling.
Austen’s original draft centres around nineteen-year-old Emma Watson, who has been cut off by her rich aunt and forced back into living with her dad. She understands the solution to her problems is likely to be via marriage, and sets about finding a suitor.
In an interview, Wade told the Standard that the project appealed because she had been keen to adapt a classic for a long time.
“This felt like a great one to go at, because it had all of that wonderful Jane Austen deliciousness, but it was unfamiliar to people because of being unfinished. I wanted to do something around the idea of what happens to the characters once the author goes away,” she said.
The Watsons will open at the Menier Chocolate Factory on September 20 and run until November 16. Tickets go on general sale on July 3 at 9am.
