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ABOUT

THE NOVEL, THE PLAY, & THE PLAYWRIGHT

In the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, a shy English spinster seeks to win back the love of the man she jilted eight years before . . .

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last-completed work, published only after her death in 1817. It embodies many of the same themes and techniques that the author explored in her earlier fiction — while also edging into new artistic terrain: influenced, perhaps, by the dawning Romantic movement. 

 

With its richly emotional, autumnal tone, and its intense attention to the inner life of the protagonist, Persuasion, as the novelist Colm Tóibín puts it, "is a novel filled with shadows and silences." And as such, presents certain challenges for an adaptor. 

 

How do you dramatize a story, where the two central characters spend most of their time trying very hard not to talk to each other? 

We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.

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