Pride and Dramaturgy: Penny Ashton @ Edfringe 2015

The Fringe
GKV: What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Penny Ashton: I am in an improv troupe, back in 2008 we were invited to an Improv festival and I had always been drawn to Jane Austen. Especially in parody. 

So we devised an Improvised Musical in the style of Austen (Austen Found) and it went incredibly well. We toured it to the Adelaide Fringe in 2010 and it sold out. BUT touring 5 people is $$ so I decided to take all the ideas we had improvised over 50 or so shows and write a solo play. 

 I wanted to include numerous Austen quotes throughout for authenticity and I knew I wanted to bring in aspects of Austen’s life herself and make it feminist. I didn’t want to just adapt one of her stories as I had seen the new stories we made every night in the improv show were satisfying to her fans who also want to be surprised and see new ideas in an Austen sense. Also it didn't require you to know her stories for the numerous (often male) partners who came to see the show and were still entertained. 

I knew I wanted it to be a musical with well known classical pieces with words added and then I knew the title before anything else. I then had a workshop to nut out the characters and the story. Then I wrote it.




Why bring your work to Edinburgh?This show has gone incredibly well in Canada, NZ and Australia. I applied to numerous London theatres last year when I did the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and found people really focus on Edinburgh critical response to decide if something is good to programme. A bit frustrating to be honest. 
This show has gone really well in Canada, NZ and Australia. I applied to numerous London theatres last year when I did the Jane Austen Festival in Bath to try and get some spots but found people really focus on Edinburgh critical response to decide if something is good to programme.
I got offered a 9.30 slot at the Leicester Square Theatre which was marvellous, but I thought it maybe a bit late so decided to hit Edinburgh, hopefully get a good response there (HOPEFULLY!) then maybe try to tour it further.
People seem to love this show (happily, YAY thank god) so I want to take it to as many of them as possible. North America also loves Austen so I hope to get some North American producers who are in town to come and see it.
Also despite it being the hardest work I ever did ten and eleven years ago, and it being a money pit, and it being a shit fight, and it making me cry quite a lot, there really is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Adelaide Fringe is close, but there’s really nothing like Edinburgh in August. And I will be in a house with numerous very good friends and my best friend/fiance who is performing at his first Edinburgh. As life experiences go, it’s not too shabby. 

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?They will see an extremely silly musical that has a strong feminist thread throughout. They will see nine characters portrayed by a forty one year old Kiwi chick. They generally love to hate two characters in particular, identify with one significantly and care about three quite deeply. 

They can expect to leave feeling happy, my best review ever I think is from an audience member last year; “Show’s like yours add spice to life.” Mic drop, my work here is done. They will think on how far woman have come, and how far they haven’t come and the ridiculous bullshit women had to put up with. They will hear a LOT of balls jokes. There’s also a lot of pop culture references for those people who don’t know anything about Austen to enjoy. And if a fan they can delight in spotting all the references from her life and books, of which there are loads.


The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?

For this show I would say I owe the structure, style and narrative etc. To Jane Austen. I see dramaturgy as the shaping of the story and for this I had a strong template in Austen. 

Character establishment, hopes dreams established, usually including seemingly perfect men, problems arise and in dealing with them true characters shine through and happy ending. The narrative is linear, things are explained through letters that happen elsewhere and the world is actually very small. 

The music is both embellishment and also story advancement. Songs come at those heightened moments, love, loss, happiness to emphasise the key moments further.


What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
Uhhhhh Ms Jane Austen ;) And parody. Historical fiction/period comedy.


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I don’t think I could ever just sit down and write a play. I am an improviser AND an actor and Comedienne, and playing with the characters first to make the story is the only way I can work. I contemplated the story then just thought, I have no fucking idea and booked my always director Ben Crowder. 

 He’s a fabulous deviser, John Bolton (Lecoq) type. We brainstormed each of the characters and the story line. I got another of my Austen improv cast in to discuss story and Austen’s type of developments. We did HUGE amounts of research with the improv show. 

 You have to be fully immersed in the world to be able to pluck any aspect of it from the air in improv, so I knew about the coaches, the food, the dress etc. already which was a huge advantage. After the week of workshops I went away for a number of months and wrote the show. Then came back to rehearse it and presented it.

So the dramaturgy for me was the story arc plotting and making it satisfying. Ensuring the stakes were raised at this point to make this action justifiable at this point. It’s a musical so verisimilitude aren’t paramount, but just as with Jurassic park you don't want people going “WAIT a minute that would never happen.” Despite the fact it’s dinosaurs so it will never bloody happen, you suspend disbelief due to being convinced through the character and the premises. Obviously theatre is entirely possible without that, but I wanted believable characters like Ms Austen.

Also something I can keep working on is the concept of not telegraphing everything from the beginning, having some surprises and reveals. I have improvised hundreds of shows and in those you have to telegraph everything from the outset so everyone else on stage knows what the hell you’re on about. 

 This was my first play so realising I can drip feed some stuff was cool. Also realsing that in knowing the basic tenets of improv, I know how to write a story. We do an exercise when you tell a full story in 4 lines of dialogue. Stuff like that was very useful though I didn’t know it at the time I suspect.



What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
As a comedienne the audience is everything to me. I make works that entertain people, hopefully making them think as well, but also entertaining them and hopefully emotionally affecting them. People have cried in this show which is AWESOME. 

 I also break the fourth wall quite a bit and get an audience member onstage so they are very important as a love interest for one of the characters :) Again that “add spice to life” comment is what I aim for. People talk to me on the way out and the smiles and laughter I see in them is very cool. 

Are there any questions that you feel I have missed out that would help me to understand how dramaturgy works for you?In a nutshell, I come up with a concept, I workshop the characters and the story arc and then I write. A narrative that jumps about in time would be a challenge for my next piece.

Mansfield Park is a must-see for lovers of Jane Austen from the country’s last remaining Regency Theatre.

Unceremoniously uprooted from her humble family home, intelligent young Fanny Price is dropped into the bustling, aristocratic household of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, where she finds herself buffeted from one crisis to the next in the company of her cousins and their well-to-do friends. Yet throughout this turmoil one thing remains a constant - her love for the generous, worthy and steadfast Edmund Bertram.

But will this love be her salvation? Or will she be forced to marry the charismatic Henry Crawford for connections and wealth alone? Can Fanny triumph over her adoptive family's demands and follow her heart to acquire the husband and life she so desires and deserves?

The question remains: when I put out churnalism, am I simply expressing my laziness? I am bulking up the blog without having to do too much work, saving my energy for important things, like smoking or shouting at my fellow students.

Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park - brought to vivid life in recent adaptations starring Billie Piper, Frances O’Conner and Johnny Lee Miller - finds a new incarnation in this acclaimed production from the very last Regency-era theatre in the country - The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Directed by Colin Blumenau, Tim Luscombe’s sharply drawn adaptation of one of Austen’s most challenging novels premièred to critical and popular acclaim last year, and the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds is delighted to be able to bring this spell-binding production to audiences around the country for the second year running, celebrating 200 years since the novel was completed in 1813.

In this case, I actually like the original novel, and feel that it would be nice for the production to circulate around whatever social media my blog can haunt. Mansfield Park is one of Austen's more quirky numbers: the heroine is so lovely, the love story so beautiful. There's none of that moral ambiguity that confused me in Emma.

A Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production

MANSFIELD PARK

By Jane Austen King’s Theatre, Edinburgh: Tuesday 5 – Saturday 9 November 2013

‘There certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them’

Tim Luscombe has been described as theatre’s ‘Austen champion’, with Mansfield Park being described as a ‘Riveting adaptation… utterly absorbing’; ‘Created with much love, affection and, above all, intelligence.’

Director Colin Blumenau’s unmatched knowledge of Georgian theatre has led the development of the Theatre Royal’s ‘Restoring the Repertoire’ programme, uncovering the smash-hit productions of this glamorous era and returning them to authentic surroundings, in some cases performing them for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

Of course, I have to slip in a cynical comment: does theatre have to rework classics to get an audience? Does the wry wit of Austen transfer to the stage? This beautiful archive I am leaving for future generations, by slapping my press releases on-line, must have a wee sting in the tail. 

Then again, isn't there a worth in Austen's plots, even detached from her prose. I spent a year trying to act like one of her heroes once. Yeah, that worked...

Dyad presents Austen's Women

My fascination with Jane Austen came about when I decided that Emma could provide me with a guide to contemporary manners. Like many of my delusions, it lasted for most of an Edinburgh Festival, and saw me doing a pitiful impersonation of Mr Darcy while making claims for the importance of restrained conversation and the value of "good language" over "important content." Right in the middle of this period, I caught Austen's Women, directed by Guy Masterson and waxed lyrical about how it was "Immaculately conceived and performed with precision by Bex Vaughan...  an exercise in how traditional values - good words, simple sets, strong acting - can better radicalism."

Those who knew me at school would be doubtless amused by my conversion to Jane Austen. When I studied it back then, I spent most of the year moaning about its lack of political relevance. 

Rebecca Vaughan's script uses Austen's various novels to weave a compilation of a nineteenth century woman's meditations on femininity: directed by a Fringe veteran, it has the necessary populist edge without becoming sentimental or precocious. Using fourteen of Austen's characters, and throwing in surprises from her lesser known works, the show exploits Austen's range: from irritating teenagers through deluded romantics to mature-minded bores, Austen catches recognisable detail, rarely descending into outright caricature. 

Each speech explores a different angle on the status, plight and ambition of women, building to a comprehensive and multi-layered conclusion. Even stripped of their context, Austen's elegant use of irony shines, while the occasional cutting turn of phrase reveals a subtle mischief beneath the coy prose. 

Vaughan and Masterson's adaptation of her most famous heroines and villains studies both the depth and intensity of Austen's interests. As my younger self recognised, she was never that interested in the impact of social upheaval, but the conflict between passion and social propriety is never far from the surface. 

While it might seem a conservative production - the costume and set make it clear that this is a period piece - it allows the script to dictate the interpretation.  A joy for anyone who cares about language, it is a welcome addition to the season at Macrobert.