Review – Austen’s Women: Lady Susan (Touring)

Saturday, 16th March 2024 at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York

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Jane Austen’s women are some of the most entertaining characters to be found within the pages of classic novels, and the wit and intelligence of her writing shines brightly in Dyad Productions’ Lady Susan. Drawing on key missives from Austen’s epistolary novel and playing every role in later interactions, Rebecca Vaughan triumphs in this one woman show.

There’s a real sense of mischief from the start as the recently widowed Lady Susan begins her tale of scheming, coquetry and husband-hunting, taking great pleasure in laying bare her plans and sparing no self-congratulation along the way. Vaughan moves between characters with impressive precision and distinctiveness under direction of Andrew Margerison, and the sense of sharpness is helped along by small but mighty devices – namely the clapping of hands to cue Lady Susan’s take-over of the narrative, which becomes increasingly comic as she seems to hijack the piece at the height of her frustrations.

But much of the performance takes shape as a battle of wills between the influential Lady Susan and sister-in-law Catherine. As the scheming, resourceful Lady Susan, Vaughan speaks in confident velvet tones and with force, right from the diaphragm. This is a woman full of practised artifice and unshakeable clarity of ambitions – she inspires humour with her audacity and barbed judgements of others, landing deliciously biting lines with a permanent knowing smirk.

Catherine is a stark transformation as Vaughan crosses the stage from chaise to chair: high-pitched irritation is her baseline and she pairs this with a fantastically mobile expressiveness, grimacing and tutting to her heart’s content. Some of the most comic moments belong to the speechless Catherine, who finds as much expressiveness in face as in shrillness and tight, incredulous laughs that she never fully releases from her throat.

Daughter Frederica takes a careful mid pitch between the two, and a softer tone, lingering on words with fluttering eyes as she heads for marriage and begins to pick up her mother’s alluring ways. The grand matriarch Mrs De Courcy is conjured with shawl, crumbling posture and an aged voice from the depths of a cave somewhere, booming her disapproval with great comic impact – it’s a wonder that Vaughan can use her voice so powerfully in such costuming, but she’s mastered 60 minutes of constant speech in a corset like nobody’s business.

Quite apart from the rich comedy of these characters, Lady Susan exposes the ridiculousness of the lot of the Georgian woman, crafting wonderful comic caricatures but never missing an opportunity to highlight the trials and tribulations of women so beholden to men for survival – and so often sunk or left to flounder by other women. In bringing such women to the stage, Rebecca Vaughan’s performance is a stellar example of carefully crafted multi-rolling, carrying us along with an assured and charismatic performance in an ambitious and brilliantly executed solo show. See this one if you can.

Austen’s Women: Lady Susan tours until October 2024 – more information and tickets can be found here.