Review: Jane Austen’s powers ramp up in Northanger Abbey

After his delightful, fast-paced production of The 39 Steps last year, Tyler J. Seguin returns with another must-see show at the city’s most atmospheric outdoor venue, the east end’s Guild Festival Theatre.

This time, in addition to directing, he’s also adapted the source material: Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (Rating: ✭✭✭✭), her lesser-known novel (of the six she completed) about a young woman obsessed with Gothic fiction whose overactive imagination gets her in trouble.

Invited by her neighbours to the resort town of Bath, Catherine (Georgia Findlay) meets two groups of people there, the Thornes and the Tilneys. Catherine befriends Isabella Thorne, who shares her love of Gothic fiction and whose brother, John, turns out to be a friend and fellow student at Oxford of Catherine’s brother, James.

Isabella and James hit it off, while John has designs on Catherine. But Catherine finds more engaging, genuine friendship with Eleanor Tilney and her handsome brother Henry. After some initial awkwardness involving double bookings and open carriages, Catherine is taken in by the Tilneys and their severe father, General Tilney, who invite her to stay with them at the eponymous Northanger Abbey.

Once there, Catherine becomes convinced that something horrid happened to the General’s late wife, whose empty rooms are hidden away. While she’s looking for clues about dastardly doings, however, she misses the more important social cues involving impending marriages and inheritances.

Austen’s semi-satiric plot isn’t the most artfully constructed (remember, this was her first full-length work, but was published posthumously); it takes a long time for readers to get to the eponymous abbey, and the book ends rather abruptly.

But Seguin has compressed some of the book’s longueurs, clarified the characters’ motivations and kept in all the elements that make Austen’s fiction so compelling: the push and pull of Regency era attraction and propriety, the misreadings of social behaviour, the witty repartée, the elegant balls.

Having obviously learned from last year’s breezy 39 Steps, director Seguin displays lots of imagination with this adaptation, having the resourceful, endlessly malleable clowns Isaiah Kolundzic and Kiana Woo change characters swiftly and efficiently, and having Andrew Prashad play all the potential male romantic partners.

Findlay, who’s onstage for almost the entire show, makes a charming heroine and guide, introducing us to Catherine’s unremarkable background – she romantically wishes she were an orphan — and letting her love of Gothic literature colour even the most banal experiences. With so much happening at any given time, it’s up to Findlay to ground and orient us, and she does so with enviable skill.

The other actors aren’t afraid of going big with their gestures; Kolundzic sports a moustache that actually twirls as one character, and Prashad extends one of his legs while walking to signify someone else. Prashad and Seguin’s decision to code John Thorpe as a fop — almost like a late 18th-century André Leon Talley — is a gamble that pays off. (Alex Amini’s costumes help a lot, too.)

And if you’re confused by the dramatis personae, Findlay’s Catherine steps forth in the middle of the show to give you a refresher.

While there aren’t as many changes of scenery as there were in last year’s show, Seguin makes marvellous use of the grand outdoor venue, using the second level of the Greek Theatre in clever ways to broaden the perspective and suggest height and scale.

Shawn Piccione’s sound design and Honey Hoseiny’s lighting make each locale feel distinct, changing the mood and ambience. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but on the night I attended, Catherine entered the forbidden east wing just as night was falling, shrouding the moment in mystery.

Some of the middle scenes could use tweaking to improve momentum, but this is an entertaining, ingenious adaptation. Seguin, the talented outgoing co-artistic director of the Guild Festival Theatre, deserves to have this clever script picked up by other companies.

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey continues at the Greek Theatre (201 Guildwood Pkwy) until Aug 23. Ticket details here