PREJUDICIAL JANE

Evening Star, Issue 23864, 19 April 1941, Page 13

PREJUDICIAL JANE

[By C. R. Allem.]

If Jane Austen had a prejudice against anything, it was directed against melodrama. A corner of the table m the rectory dining room was reserved for her, and there she held up to Nature a mirror so minute it might have come out of a vanity bag. She differed utterly from Lady Wincholsea, who was . the forerunner of Wordsworth and Coleridge. For the Lake school Nature meant the sounding cataract, ■« the sin-do tree, of many one,’ or the orchard grove. Jane Austen’s scemc background conformed to tbe Augustan convention Her Mansfield Park was little more than a backcloth to the story. . Yet she had the equipment for a writer of scenes tor the theatre. Mr Collins’s wooing may he lifted almost bodily from the text, of the story, as it was by tho author or a oneact play, and as it is in part by Miss Helen Jerome for a three hours tralho on the stage of the St. James Theatre. No more suitable habitat, with the exception of the Hayraarket, could have been desired for a full-length stage version of ‘ Pride and Prejudice.’ ' , Tho Dunedin Repertory bociety is presenting a revival of Miss Jerome’s play. Details of the cast have been given already. It is hardly necessary to say that into what will lie an elaborate production Miss Bessie Thomson has put of her best. Those of us who can recall the enticing illustrations of Brock and Hugh Thomson will realise the efficacy of a. high-collared tail coat and an Empire frock. A visit to ‘ Pride and Prejudice ’ should act as a tonic to anyone who may chance to feel .that the present times are out of joint. Things were not all that they might have been for England in Jane’s day, and her sailor brothers were kept busy with the French, one would suppose. Napoleon, it will be remembered, hovered about ‘Quality Street’ as the shade of Pillington hovered over Kensington Gardens in ‘ The Little White Bird.’ Those who witness the forthcoming revival will not inquire in which direction Barrie’s good fairy directed him when he wrote ‘Quality Street.’