Professor Lindsey Surratt explores flirting and the importance of house plays in Mansfield Park.

Jane Austen’s captivating characters lived a life free from the necessities of hard labor. The patriarchs of her female protagonists were members of the primogeniture, and therefore men of income and inheritance. Evenings spent in entertainment sprinkle all the novels, especially those taking place in town such as London or Bath. Yet, evenings spent amongst family or small dinner parties in the country required leisure to while away the hours, and the entertainment must have been provided by the attendees. Austen’s novels are full of simple and extravagant entertainment from playing cards to taking walks about the room to country dances where marital contracts are cemented. In Mansfield Park, the characters decide a house play is the best way to entertain themselves.

With the arrival of John Yates to the Bertram household in Mansfield Park in chapter 13, the characters are given an outlet to display their true intentions through a play. The idea and planning for the play amongst the young adults take up six chapters of Austen’s longest novel, anti-climatically ending with no performance, but the drama within those six chapters sets up the remainder of the action of the book. So, the question remains, what is a house play?

Many of us have gone to the theater to see a play or an award-winning musical. There is a reason that Broadway is such a huge deal in Manhattan. Those who lived in the big cities in England in the early 19th century would spend evenings at the theatre or opera, being entertained by professionals. A house play is a play meant for the theater performed by non-professionals at home. Ms. Austen engaged with house theatricals in her youth, reflected in her juvenilia with the inclusion of three playlets, all social comedies, entitled The Visit, The Mystery, and The first Act of a Comedy. Not only do these short playlets show great satire, but Austen also alludes to other playwrights in her juvenilia, especially Shakespeare. Austen includes stage directions in her young writing, showing an appreciation and an understanding of theatricals.

During Austen’s time in Bath after her father’s retirement from 1801-1805, she very likely attended the theatre. The edition of Lover’s Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald, which was a version of the original German play by Kotzebue, Natural Son, is the one featured in Mansfield Park. Inchbald’s version saw 12 editions published through 1799. John Yates and young Thomas Bertram had seen the play in town and considered it over Shakespeare and other plays found in the home because they didn’t want something serious or speechy. Just like Austen’s juvenilia plays that were social commentary and satirical, Lover’s Vows is on a very serious subject but satirical as well. The play at home allows for immersion day and night preparing the billiard room for production, memorizing lines, and practicing scenes. Even Aunt Norris is engaged to make a curtain and wood craftsmen are hired to build a stage. A far cry from instant engagement like cards or reading from a book after dinner, the play takes up all their free time and allows for more intimate flirtations.

Flirtations are not unseen in Austen’s novels with the inclusion of dancing, either a small dance at home or a ball. English country dancing is often seen as one of the few chances a young couple had to engage in conversation semi-privately and possibly touch hands or a waist encircled within the confines of the dance. The decorum and courting rules of the time period prevented private conversation, handholding, or any type of physical touching without a chaperone present. The most flirtatious characters in Austen’s novels seem to enjoy dancing the most, such as Lydia and Kitty as well as Wickham in Pride and Prejudice and the Musgrove sisters in Persuasion. Yet, a play offers more intimacy than seen on the page in any of Austen’s other novels. Henry Crawford remarks, “I feel as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language. Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play, an act, a scene; what should prevent us?” And that is what the characters do. Although playing mother and son, Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford are able to whisper to each other, touch hands, and offer physical comfort. Edmund Bertram is so nervous to repeat scandalous lines to Mary Crawford as lovers that he first goes to Fanny, which Mary does as well. The characters in the play offer the characters in the book a chance to be someone else, even for a short while. Luckily, true to Henry Crawford’s cry of “who can stop us?”, Lord Bertram returns just as they are getting ready to perform for the first time. The play is stopped, but after six chapters of play acting, things continue to develop behind the scenes. Lover’s Vows includes an illegitimate child and a woman falling for a man below her social status. So, when Maria run offs with Henry Crawford although married to Mr. Rushworth, the reader is not surprised. And for all his romantic speech making, Edmund is able to see Mary Crawford for who she is really is, a shallow actress who only cares for herself, her brother, and their mutual advancement. These all take place many chapters later, but the theatrically expressed in the beginning of the book come out in the end.

Mansfield Park is not considered a favorite amongst Austen’s complete novels. It was published right after Pride and Prejudice, but it differs in terms of the female protagonist and the family dynamics. I encourage all Austen fans to take another look at this challenging and rewarding book. There is so much to unpack, from the misfortunes of Fanny Price in her upbringing to the character of Mrs. Norris and her acidity, the interloping Crawford siblings, the business in Antigua and the historical context, and the inclusion of a play within a novel, sparking debate on its effect on the drama amongst the siblings and the overall course of the story.

© Lindsey Surratt 2024. Lindsey Surratt is a PhD student at University of Texas Arlington, teaching Austen-centric courses and as assistant director to First-Year Writing. Her dissertation is entitled “Lost Before Austen: The Forgotten Texts of the Women Who Inspired Austen,” a study on the works of Elizabeth Inchbald and Maria Edgeworth and their connection to Austen. When not moonlighting as an Austen scholar, Mrs. Surratt enjoys trips in single-engine aircraft with her pilot spouse and raising seven daughters, trying to outdo Mrs. Bennet. You can find her at @moremartinlessbennet and on Linkedin.

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