As founder of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Jon Jory established a legacy here in Louisville from which we all benefit. It has been almost a decade since Jory turned over the keys of the institution he founded to pursue a teaching career in the Pacific Northwest. Last month he returned at the behest of Artistic Director Marc Masterson to direct his own adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
JJ: I left Louisville in 2000 with an offer from the University of Washington.
I really felt like someone who had been tuning a car for thirty years – after
thirty years you just can’t figure out how to tune it any better.
I knew that somebody else would be able to see the engine in a different
way, so I thought it was probably time for: (a) me to have some new adventures;
and (b) the theatre to have a new, insightful eye.
SD: So you became a professor.
JJ: I had always been interested in teaching and I taught
a lot with the apprentice program here at Actors. So I went out to teach
acting and directing in a part of the country where I had never spent any
time – the Northwest.
I’ve enjoyed that terrific-ally. They have also allowed me to keep
a professional life going, so I’ve been directing around the country
two or three times a year. It’s been a wonderful mix.
SD: And this is one of those excursions.
JJ: Marc Masterson was kind enough to invite me back which,
I must say, is a very generous spirit indeed. In some of these arts organizations,
when you leave, people are all too happy not to have to think about the
past. Marc has been really warm and it’s been a wonderful relationship.
I really admire his work, and he has let me come back two or three times
to direct. So here I am again – hopefully not like the bad penny – to
do Pride and Prejudice.
SD: This is your own adaptation of the novel. How did
that project begin?
JJ: My wife actually got me started on nineteenth century
novels. I’m
in the depths of probably my twenty-fifth Anthony Trollope novel at the
moment. I love the period, and I got a chance to do the adaptation for
a production of Pride and Prejudice at Arizona Theatre Company. So I have
directed it once before there, and now I’m here with almost an entirely
new group of people doing it again, much to my particular pleasure and,
I hope, to the community’s.
SD: I found it interesting that you are juxtaposing the
subtleties of the relationships within the play through dialogue against
an understated set.
JJ: All you have to think about in adaptation is that
you have a 400-page novel and 90 pages of play text. At the very most,
you are doing a fourth of the words and that gives you two choices: (a)
to sort of skim the novel and, in essence, try to give the novel as whole
as possible, though smaller; or (b) you could focus on particular relationships
and take characters out.
SD: How did you address this adaptation?
JJ: I have taken a few characters out, but I have tried
to give as much of the novel as is possible. One of Miss Austen’s
many skills is that she has written some of the most delicious, best-remembered
and best-loved characters in the history of the novel. Many people remember
these novels word for word; and when I first adapted it, I was petrified
that the Jane Austen Society would come and carry me away to jail.
SD: You had to pare down the number, but did you have
to change her words?
JJ: I found a way to use, almost exclusively, Miss Austen’s
words. I would say there aren’t more than a dozen-and-a-half lines
in the play that aren’t direct from Austen. And those are only there
because of some necessity of plot or character that I couldn’t get
on stage any other way. As to the atmosphere, you have to have a really
cinematic style; the book itself changes scenes almost chapter by chapter
and there are sixty-some chapters. I had to find a style that allowed me
to move quickly from place to place. That means you have a choice of trying
to have sixteen sets – which would be clumsy and slow you down – or
you can have a simpler, quicker style that still provides atmosphere, but
mostly from the lights. The characters really provide the atmosphere of
the play, even watching the BBC adaptation, which I really admire – I
think it was beautifully acted. But you’re not really all that aware
of scenery. It made me think that this choice was possible because the
theatre is the theatre. The theatre can’t be film and the theatre
can’t be television. You have to produce the play in a way only
the theatre could produce it.
SD: How many actors are you using?
JJ: It’s a large cast for this day and age – around
fourteen folks. Readers are enumerating in their heads right now the wonderful
characters: Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins, the Gardiners, all the daughters – everyone
has their favorite. In a certain sense, it’s a play almost like Our
Town in terms of the affection people have for them.
SD: You mentioned the Jane Austen Society and that people
who love Jane Austen are devoted.
JJ: Very devoted. The Jane Austen Society has chapters
in almost any large city and in some smaller towns around the country.
They have gigantic annual meetings where they work on three days of period
dance and have lectures about the novels.
SD: Even when you were Artistic Director of Actors Theatre,
you directed internationally. How do you keep it all in balance?
JJ: After the first few years at Actors, when I was directing
like an insane person, I got down to three plays a year; and that’s
what I direct now around the country.
SD: How does that complement your academic commitments?
JJ: I teach in UW’s graduate, professional acting and directing programs – mainly
acting, but a little bit of directing. In those schools – and there
are probably ten or twelve in the country that are really trying to turn
out professional actors and directors who will make a living – they
really want you to maintain your professional contacts, not only for yourself,
but for the students. Because I’ve gotten to work with some very
talented students, I am able to bring them, usually after they graduate,
to work with me elsewhere. As a matter of fact, there are three or four
ex-students working with me on Pride and Prejudice here in Louisville.
SD: What kinds of conversation are you having with the
actors since, as you said, everything comes from the dialogue and the nuance
of their interactions on stage?
JJ: First of all, there’s just a lot of stage-craft because of its
cinematic movement from place to place. Secondly, daughter Elizabeth centers
the play the way an anchor could hold a large ship. As we all know, Darcy
and Elizabeth have the hottest romantic relationship ever written, so we
must trace her emotional movement through the play. The other thing Jane
Austen’s books have that makes her a real theatrical possibility
is her heart. You care about the people and what happens to them. So you
must find ways in the midst of all this rampant theatricality to make sure
that the simplicity and heart are there. Just in terms of the staging,
there is so much movement in the piece that you have to be careful to find
ways to have stillness and listen to the language. Why would you want to
go to the theatre to see this play and not listen to the language?
SD: The economics of the book are also very interesting.
JJ: Yes, it’s a powerful fact that the Bennets,
who have five daughters, live in a home that is “entailed,” which
means that the property must descend through a male heir. Since Mr. Bennet
has no male heirs, when he dies the home will go to a relative and the
girls can be evicted. If they have not married and found homes of their
own, what will happen to them is, in fact, what happened to Jane Austen.
They would have to go off and be somebody’s governess or a teacher,
or find a relative to take them in. We become sympathetic with Mrs. Bennet,
who is in some ways an unattractive character because she is so pushy,
when we realize that those girls’ lives are in the palm of her hand.
Who has what amount of money is operative in this play.
SD: I hope everyone gets a sense of what’s happening
between the lines.
JJ: I don’t want everybody to bring their anthropology
text or make a study of nineteenth century British economy in anticipation
of the play. You will enjoy this, and everything you need to enjoy it
is right there on the stage.
Jon Jory’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice can be seen at Actors Theatre September 30 to November 2 in the Pamela Brown Auditorium. For tickets, call 502.584.1205 or go to www.ActorsTheatre.org.