HMM. NOT QUITE what the cover (30ish brunette woman in a high-waisted Empire dress poolside in L.A., cellphone in hand and Variety beside her) or the subtitle would lead you to expect. What you expect, of course, is some analysis of why film and television adaptations of Austen's fiction have been so successful. All of the novels have been adapted multiple times, with even the juvenilia getting a look-in (Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship, actually based not on the work of that title but on Lady Susan). How might we account for that?
There is indeed a chapter at the end of the book on that topic, but it turns out to have been tacked on to a more soberly and scholarly tome from 2002, not published in the US, called Jane Austen and the Theatre.
The chapter at the end was a bit disappointing, really. It surveyed several of the adaptations, made the point that the ones that were the least reverential towards the material (Clueless, Rozema's Mansfield Park) were actually the most faithful to the spirit of Austen, but essentially begs the question on the topic raised by the subtitle by claiming the novels were rooted in Austen's love of the theater of her day--as if 18th century plays were already Hollywood-friendly. Which is why we have so many film adaptations of School for Scandal and She Stoops to Conquer, I guess.
The original book itself is interesting, though. Knowing that the Austens themselves frequently went in for private theatricals puts that episode of Mansfield Park into a whole new light, and Byrne does a nice job of showing how Kotzebue's Lovers' Vows (the production aborted in Mansfield Park by the unexpected return of Sir Thomas Bertram) counterpoints the circumstances of the characters planning to perform it. Byrne also has some enlightening discussion of the relevance of Sheridan's Rivals to Sense and Sensibility.
Worth reading, in short--event though the cover and subtitle are a bit opportunistic and misleading.
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