Jane Austen Biographical Info |
Charlotte and Emily Brontė enter.
CHARLOTTE: I'm Charlotte.
EMILY: And I'm Emily Brontė.
CHARLOTTE: And we would like to introduce Jane Austen to you.
EMILY: You might not be familiar with her actual life.
CHARLOTTE: But first, who has read any of Jane Austen's novels?
Wait for audience response.
EMILY: How many of you have read at least Pride and Prejudice?
Wait for audience response.
CHARLOTTE: I have and I didn't quite like it.
EMILY: I don't think that statment will make these Jane Austen fans run out and buy Jane Eyre!
CHARLOTTE: I don't really care. I'm dead, so I won't get profits from the sales anyway.
EMILY: Alright. How many of you have read Northanger Abbey?
Wait for audience response.
CHARLOTTE: Aha! Well you get to have a taste of that tonight.
EMILY: Oh Charlotte, let's get on to talking about Jane's life.
CHARLOTTE: Jane Austen was born in 1775 to a minister of a parish in Steventon.
EMILY: Just like us! Our father is a minister too. We're great writers as well.
CHARLOTTE: Emily Brontė! You're interrupting me.
EMILY: Tell them about the splendid novels, Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE: Jane Austen composed six complete novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Mansfield Park. Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published after her death. As I said before, I disliked Pride and Prejudice.
EMILY: And during her lifetime her works were published not under her name, but simply described as being written "by a lady."
CHARLOTTE: During her life she was inseparable from her dear sister, Cassandra.
EMILY: Just like us! We're the closest of friends, Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE: Right. She had many proposals, but never married.
EMILY: The man who would have probably have become her husband died in a tragic accident, right before he was supposed to meet up with the Austen family.
CHARLOTTE: Right, and then she died, before she could write anything better than Pride and Prejudice.
EMILY: Will you STOP?? Jane Austen tragically died at the age of forty-one, from Addison's disease, a disease of the adrenal glands.
CHARLOTTE: Poor Jane. But her work lives on.
NARRATOR: Charlotte, Emily, I'm sorry.
EMILY: What?
NARRATOR: The writers of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen have decided to drop your segment.
CHARLOTTE: What did we do wrong?
Emily and Charlotte exit stage downcast, preparing for costume change.
NARRATOR: They said they found in their focus group that the audience wanted hipper figures to communicate Jane Austen's history and background. Do people even know who Emily and Charlotte Brontė are anymore? So we have decided to install this next segment instead: "Lil' Kim and Beyonce Bring Jane Austen to Light."
Lil' Kim and Beyonce enter, dressed in hip-hop garb. They rap along to a hip-hop beat.
LIL' KIM and BEYONCE:
JANE AUSTEN WAS BORN IN STEVENTON SHE STARTED WRITING WHEN SHE WAS REAL YOUNG HER EARLY WORKS WERE CALLED JUVENIL-YUH THO' SHE NEVER HEARD HIP-HOP OR USED THE INTERNET - DUH WE BRING JANE AUSTEN TO THE STAGE SO SHE WON'T BE FORGOTTEN IN THE PRESENT AGE WHILE SHE LIVED, SHE WAS VERY POOR SHE WROTE HER WORKS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS SHE WAS A GENIUS AND WROTE SIX BOOKS WHAT ARE THEY? WE'LL TAKE A LOOK SENSE AND SENSIBILITY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE IT'S A POSSIBILITY THAT YOU HAVE MISSED: NORTHANGER ABBEY AND MANSFIELD PARK BUT WE'LL EXPLAIN IT TO YOU SO YOU WON'T BE IN THE DARK EMMA PERSUASION RISE TO THE OCCASION SHE WROTE POETRY AND LETTERS IT DOESN'T GET BETTER IT GETS WORSE JANE AUSTEN DIED IN WINCHESTER OH, YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT WOOOOOOOO!Continue to Sense & SensibilityLil Kim and Beyonce exit.