I am most fortunate to live within an easy drive of one of North America’s best summer theatre festivals, the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
We are great theatre fans in this family, and make a point of going to several performances each summer. Sometimes we spend the night, other times we drive there and back in a day, and we’ll often make more than one trip each year. While the festival specialises in Shakespeare, mounting three or more of The Bard’s plays each season, their fifteen (or so) productions each year span the centuries and cater to so many tastes, from classic theatre to new productions and fabulous musicals.
This past weekend marked our first outing there this summer, and (yes, this does involve Austen, honest), the first play we saw was a terrific adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.
When I saw the announcements for this season’s shows several months ago, I knew I had to see this, and we booked our tickets months ago. Of course, there is always that moment of dread: Will it be okay? Will it capture Austen’s vision? Will it be pedantic or will it sparkle? But I’ve seen enough fabulous productions at Stratford that I was hopeful.
Well, the verdict is that it was delightful! It was well acted, lively, and funny, with the very clever use of a group of “gossips” that acted as a sort of Greek chorus to fill in the background and act as minor characters when needed. The costumes were lovely and true to the era, but these Gossips, with a bit of an insider’s wink for Regency afficionados, were dressed more with an eye to the humorous cartoons of the era than the more realistic paintings. Bright, colourful, and just that bit over-the-top, they were perfect.
As we sat in our seats, waiting for the play to begin, my daughter joked that the play was sure to need my character Alexander Lyons, from the Miss Mary Investigates series, to show up, because everything is more interesting when the murders begin.
Imagine our reaction, then, when the first thing that happened on stage was a body dropping from the ceiling… the late and lamented Mr Dashwood (Elinor and Marianne’s father), to set the first scene, and the mood of the whole play. Clever, funny, and a bit unexpected.
If you are anywhere near Stratford this summer, it’s well worth the time!
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When I haven’t been dashing across the province to go to the theatre, I’ve been writing. My next book in the multi-author Noble Hearts Historical Romance series releases on August 15, and it is ready for publication. Once more, my cover artist at Calliope Covers has worked her magic, and I’m thrilled.
While this historical romance is not part of Austen’s universe , how can anything set in the greater Regency era not be inspired by our favourite author of the period? And, in many ways, this novel does draw inspiration from Sense and Sensibility.
In A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall, my two characters channel Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in many ways. These two also reflect the push-and-pull of the Classical and the Romantic.
Julia, my heroine, is like Elinor—serious, controlled, rooted in form and logic. She is all sense. She is the governess at Brookview Hall, and thrives on order.
My hero, Cornelius, is more like Marianne. He is an artist, the new painting master at Brookview. He is drawn to nature and passion, guided by his sensibilities and disdainful of convention.
Their story does not echo Sense and Sensibility, but these two lovers’ personalities do, showing us once again how Jane Austen, in her genius, gave us characters that resonate through the ages.
Here is a short excerpt from A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall. I hope you enjoy it.
***
But their governess! Oh, she would be a trial.
All that talk of spelling and arithmetic, of schedules and rigour. That might be fine and good for her lessons, the dry assortment of rules and rote that all children were subjected to. But to try to impose that same set of restrictions on him? No, that would never do.
Surely, she understood that art could not be put in a box, to be unpackaged and examined like a butterfly on a pin or a Latin sentence in need of parsing, to be picked apart until there was no meaning left in the pile of subjunctives and accusatives. No, it must be released from its bounds, allowed to fly free from the specimen box, to flit through wildflower-filled meadows, to dance in a frenzy of adverbs and adjectives, rid of the chains of grammar, to breathe in allusion and breathe out poetry.
Still, his artist’s eye could not discount her so easily. She might be an unimaginative martinet, but she was not unworthy of being looked at.
He glanced at her now as she fussed about with the younger boys. Was it her figure that captured his attention, slim enough while still being round in all the right places? Was it her dark, glossy hair, caught up in a tight knot at the back of her neck, or perhaps the expression in her dark eyes, inscrutable and mysterious? He could not even guess her age, for while her features and the contour of her face were young, her stern demeanour gave her the gravitas of years. Was she twenty? Twenty-five? Surely not much more. Her carriage was upright, giving the impression of greater height than she possessed, and her movements—from what he had seen thus far—were elegant and economical. She had no small share of beauty, if one liked black hair on white skin, and something about her cried out to be painted.
He wondered, abstractly, if she would sit for him. He wished to mount an exhibition, at the suggestion of his friend Peter De Wint, and a few portraits would sit well with his collection of landscapes.
A tug at his hand ended his wool-gathering, and Cornelius looked down into young Charlie’s eager eyes.
“Can you draw me?” the lad asked. “Please!”
“Do not bother Mr Robertson,” the governess chided, but the little boy was too ingenuous to resist.
“Very well. Hand me my bag, the large black one by the door.”
The child ran to do his bidding, and Cornelius withdrew a large pad of sketching paper and, from a smaller pocket, a piece of charcoal. This he could do.
“Now I need you to stand very, very still. Can you do that?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I can stand still.” Charlie was almost bouncing on his toes in excitement, but he somehow contrived not to move—too much!
Cornelius studied the boy’s face, found the lines and shadows, the curve of his cheek and the spot where the light reflected off his eyes, and then, with a few deft strokes, let his charcoal do the work.
“Why, that is remarkable!”
He had not noticed the governess move across the carpet to observe him, but now she was standing just to his side, watching over his shoulder as he rendered the little boy’s likeness.
“I am an artist, madam,” he replied, keeping his voice as flinty as possible.
“Oh, the drawing is very fine. But that is not what I meant. You somehow contrived to keep Charlie still for more than a few seconds.”
There was not a hint of a smile on her face, but something in her had thawed.
Cornelius decided he might ask her to sit for him after all.
A Brush With Love will be available on Amazon in eBook and paperback formats, and free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
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