Georgia Findlay & Andrew Prashad in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey | Photo by Raph Nogal
I finished the novel just in time for this thoroughly agreeable (channeling some Austen myself) adaptation by Tyler J. Seguin, his final production for Guild Festival Theatre as co-artistic director. The facetiously long-winded title, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (A Most Horrid Mystery), gives you some sense of the tone here. Austen herself was deliberately poking fun at the sensationalistic tropes of Gothic literature, but Seguin and the team have amped it up considerably here.
The story sees its young Heroine (who sees herself with a capital H), Catherine Morland (Georgia Findlay), finding her way into high society while vacationing in Bath. Jane Austen inserts herself quite liberally into the novel as a editorializing presence (she even goes on a very amusing, two-page rant about how she does not condone the maligning of novels within novels), but Seguin has fashioned Catherine herself into a feisty yet self-deprecating narrator of her own story.
As the other three cast members run circles around her as an array of colourful supporting characters, Findlay is a solid, grounding presence. I’ve noticed that she seems drawn to heightened, period material and it suits her wonderfully. Her vocal quality, body language and overall vibe allows these potentially stuffy or affected aesthetics to feel so entirely earnest. Her Catherine is endearing in a way that feels purposeful and theatrically articulate.
While reading Austen’s novel, I was surprised to discover that Catherine never even gets to the titular abbey until over halfway through the story. The whole first half is a series of social engagements she luxuriates in and frets over—balls and carriage trips and walks. There are scandals and social faux pas galore as the characters and their dynamics are set up.
The Bath social scene is laid out here in a whirlwind of a sequence in which the ensemble—Isaiah Kolundzic, Andrew Prashad and Kiana Woo (knocking everything they here do right out of the park!)—represent a rapid-fire array of bit parts in a socialite carousel. For those in the audience who might have trouble tracking all the Brothers and Sisters and Suitors—oh my!—their mid-show refresher, a sort of theatrical Rolodex, earned them a well deserved applause.
Kiana Woo, Georgia Findlay & Isaiah Kolundzic in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey | Photo by Raph Nogal
Sequin has devised a whole slew of exhilarating business that is both narratively persuasive and whimsically self-aware. All of the carriage rides, for instance, are an elegant sight, with the actors bobbing and swooping about, parasols and tables standing in for wheels. There is a rather lengthy walking scene that never gets tiresome because they keep switching up the perspective—a modest bit staging that keeps this stretch of dialogue visually compelling without drawing attention to itself.
Once she gets to Northanger Abbey, invited by the Tilney family, the mystery tropes really come out to play. She almost looses her potential beau, the playfully suave Henry Tilney (Prashad is very adorable in this role), when she lets on that she, after some outrageous snooping, imagined a whole dreadful scenario where his father, General Tilney, murdered his late wife. Kolundzic, by the way, is serving up some comedic gold as the General, with his dancing moustache and glorious harrumphing.
Prashad also plays John Thorp in a more campy portrait of a boastful suitor whose grotesque advances our intrepid Catherine heroically deflects. Of the many turns Woo takes here, my favourite was Catherine’s grandly blustering mother. As her materialistic friend Isabella, she’s also an amusing foil for Catherine.
After some dire circumstances threaten the romance between Henry and Catherine, Austen conjures up some all-too-convenient plotting to save the day. It’s an obvious contrivance, of course, and Austen expects us to recognize that, yet again, though, Seguin has lampshaded it for theatrical effect, enhancing the parody.
All of his re-workings here (with some dramaturgical support from Helen Juvonen) are clever in their theatrical expediency and serve the spirit of the novel admirably. The Northanger mystery stuff is a little more adventurous than the original, with secret passages to amplify the sense of Gothic shenanigans, and he’s swapped out characters in specific situations to simplify the plot for this format. I’m especially fond of how the wilfully too-perfect happy ending is framed—holding up an ideal of how the world “should be” as a fanciful yet noble enterprise.
One of my favourite interpretations here is the depiction of Catherine’s sorrowful, solo carriage-ride back home after being unceremoniously, and quite cruelly, dismissed by the General. With her cape billowing out behind her, the downbeat internal monologue from the novel explodes outward as ominous echoes of her experiences leading up to this devastation.
Alex Amini’s period costumes are stylish and dignified. Elisia Evans’ production design features a fold-up misty forest as well as a painted representation of a narrow stone stairway that is quiet eerie and, strangely enough, rather convincing amidst the cast stone of the Greek Theatre.
While I enjoyed Austen’s novel and found it very funny and sweet, I confess it did occasionally try my patience. At an hour and forty minutes, this conveys all of the essential beats, is unabashedly more kinetic and flamboyant than Austen’s prose and, though it never loses momentum, it also never misrepresents her ethos. This production has taken Austen’s Gothic satire, her a skewering of aristocratic elitism, and fashioned it into an immensely giddy romp.
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (A Most Horrid Mystery)
August 6 to 23, 2026
The Greek Theatre, Guild Park & Gardens
(201 Guildwood Parkway)
1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)
Georgia Findlay & Kiana Woo in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey | Photo by Raph Nogal