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The work of author Jane Austen has long been beloved for its wit, charm and keen insights into human nature and social mores. And while there have been numerous stage and screen adaptations of her novels, Kristin Hall, a Peninsula actor, writer and Austen aficionado, said she hasn’t seen any that she feels fully capture the magic of reading the books.
“I think a part of that is, at least a third of the jokes are located in Jane Austen’s narrative voice, that beautifully snarky narrative voice,” Hall said. “You don’t really appreciate just how funny she is unless you’re also reading all of the narration in addition to the lines that the characters say.”
The pleasure of hearing – and sharing – Austen’s singular voice aloud is one of the reasons Hall founded Jane Austen Reader’s Theatre, which presents free readings of Austen’s work by local actors, usually once a month at The Yard Coffee in Redwood City.
An appreciation for blending classic literature and live theater makes perfect sense for someone of Hall’s background — not only is she an actor but she’s also a librarian by trade, currently volunteering with the Redwood City Library’s traveling storytime program and working for Kepler’s Literary Foundation. A longtime Austen fan, she said she’s “become a bit of an armchair scholar of Austen’s work” in recent years. She’s written a storyteller’s stage adaptation of Austen’s “Northanger Abbey,” which she described as “an ensemble piece where the actors rotate playing the characters and all of the actors are also narrators where they’re just flat-out saying Jane Austen’s language.” That project helped to spark the idea for an ongoing, casual reader’s theatre group. Another motivation was to give local actors a chance to flex their theatrical muscles on a low-pressure, volunteer basis.
“The last few years I, personally, have had a career and a life that hasn’t allowed me to make the three-month commitment to rehearsals and performance. More and more people I know are in that boat now,” Hall said. “It’s almost impossible to just act in the Bay Area. It’s so expensive to live here at this point, everyone has to have another job, a day job, and I wanted to create an opportunity for so many of the talented actors I know whose jobs don’t really give them the flexibility to do a fully mounted production at a local theater company.”
Jane Austen Reader’s Theatre kicked off in August with “Pride and Prejudice.” At the October event, Hall, reading Austen’s narration, was joined by local actors Sara Trupski reading the male roles and Sarah Thermond reading the female roles. Audience members sipped coffee, wandered in and out of The Yard’s patio space, and tittered appreciatively at key moments of humor. The readers had reached a scene set at a ball, and Trupski and Thermond deftly changed their vocal inflections and mannerisms to portray their multiple characters.
Using distinctive voices for each character is one of the things Hall is looking for when casting actors for the reading sessions. The other is being comfortable with doing cold readings, as the group does not rehearse beforehand (although actors are given a script with their lines highlighted in advance).
“It’s a very low time commitment but a ton of fun,” Hall said. “It’s kind of a unique skill set as a performer.”
Trupski worked with Hall in a production of “The Tempest” at Silicon Valley Shakespeare and, as an admirer of her acting talent and her taste in literature, knew she was interested in being a part of Jane Austen Reader’s Theatre as soon as she heard about it.
“I always thought that ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was the funniest of Jane Austen’s novels. But it’s wordy and it can be difficult to follow,” Trupski told this news organization in an email. “I thought hearing actors read it out loud in its original, unabridged form would be the perfect way to enjoy the story along with other Jane Austen enthusiasts.”
Thermond too met Hall through theater, and also said they quickly bonded over their mutual love of literature, and Austen in particular. She had never done any reader’s theater before and was excited to give it a try. The lack of rehearsal requirements makes it easy to balance with her work schedule, and she said she especially enjoys the opportunity to play many iconic characters at a time.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in a few plays where I got to tackle the challenge of being a bunch of roles, and it is so much fun to try to create different voices and switch quickly between speakers,” she wrote in an email interview.
So far, Hall has cast the readings using friends she’s worked with in the local theater community, but anyone who is interested in taking part in a future reading can sign up online, with folks of all backgrounds welcome to apply.
“If this continues to take off, I would love to do it twice a month,” Hall said. “I had no idea if anybody was going to be into this or if I was the only one crazy enough to want to get up in front of strangers and read Jane Austen.”
The next reading is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. on Feb. 5.
After “Pride and Prejudice” is finished, Hall is considering “Persuasion” next, although her personal favorite is “Sense and Sensibility.” But no matter the novel selection, Hall hopes audiences will enjoy the readings regardless of whether they’ve been listening since the beginning or pop in midway through.
“I hope they find they can just jump in, in terms of whatever chapter we’re on,” she said. “You don’t have to have come to them all. The whole premise of this is that it’s a good time no matter what chapters we’re reading that night.”
The Yard, Hall said, with its picturesque courtyard and historic building in the heart of downtown, “is a special space; it is a magical space,” adding that it reminds her of where she grew up, in artsy Asheville, North Carolina.
Bringing bits of theater to nontraditional venues is another reason why Hall founded the group. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for traditional theater companies to stay afloat, with overall attendance down since the pandemic, as reported by the Redwood City Pulse.
Hall pointed to the example of Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s ShakesBEERience events, which offer free staged Shakespeare readings in casual, social settings such as at breweries, as a model for the Jane Austen Reader’s Theatre and, perhaps, a model for local theater in general.
“That may be the future of theater, at least in the Bay Area, for a while. More site-specific theater experiences like that, rather than the traditional model of, people pay a lot of money to sit in the dark and they’re quiet and pay attention,” she said.
“I really want that form of theater to survive!” Hall was quick to emphasize, “but there’s something fun to be made out of a more informal setting.”
The next installment of Jane Austen Reader’s Theatre is scheduled for Feb. 5 at 7 p.m., The Yard Coffee, 1018 Main St. Redwood City; austenreaderstheatre.com.
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