Old and new topics aka Blanche Ingram doing physics in a laptop

Old and new topics mix in this August 24 newsround.

The old ones:
A new review of Edward Mendelson's The Things That Matter appears today in The New York Times:

The rather cloudy essay on “Wuthering Heights” singles out childhood rather than adult love as the passion binding Catherine and Heathcliff. The opposite is true in “Jane Eyre”: Childhood was torment. She rejects Rochester until, an invalid and widower, he can become her husband without threatening her autonomy. “Reader, I married him,” she announces; Mr. Mendelson points out: not, “we were married.”

The Edmonton Sun publishes also a new review of the performanc:es of Jane Eyre. The Musical in the Edtonton's Fringe Festival. This time the reviewer, Erik Floren, seems more enthusiast than the last one :

Soaring melodies and a poignant love story culled from the classic novel Jane Eyre give this Broadway musical of the same name its beauty and rich depth.

With a haunting, memorable score and intelligent lyrics, Jane Eyre features musical jewels such as Forgiveness, Brave Enough for Love and In the Light of the Virgin Morning among its songs. (...)

Nicole Rowley has a lovely voice in the title role, and handles her character with the grace and conviction called for by the part (although she's certainly no plain Jane in looks).

Her sweetly voiced renditions of Sweet Liberty, Secret Soul and Sail Away will linger in your mind.

Cody Michie boasts the ability and appearance to play a leading man in a musical, even one as emotionally complex as Edward Rochester. His voice, however, grew strained and then raspy toward the end of the show. He gamely carried on.

With all the soloing, duets and ensemble numbers, there's a demanding amount of singing in this show for the leads.

As Blanche Ingram, Stephanie Callow showcased her strong pipes and was particularly good in The Finer Things. Another fine voice was that of Lindsay McDonald as Helen Burns,

Myla Southward's wonderfully over-the-top performance as Mrs. Fairfax provided punchy comic relief, and was expressed through two buoyant tunes, Perfectly Nice and Slip of a Girl.

Many members of the strong cast of 16 have multiple roles. Ellie Heath was good in triple character as a schoolgirl, Cockney servant Grace Pool, and irrepressible French teenager Adele.

The musical concludes with a rousing Brave Enough for Love, neatly reprising a theme from earlier in the show. Written by John Caird and Paul Gordon, Jane Eyre wowed Broadway in 2000, as it did the audience at this performance.

It was well-cast and directed with a sure and creative hand by Tim Ryan.And in testimony to the reputation of Ryan and his MacEwan Theatre students, their production sold out the day I saw it. Which was amazingly because it was a Monday afternoon, normally a fairly quiet time at the Fringe.

And the new ones:

In all these months publishing allusions and imaginative metaphores involving the Brontës we hadn't come across one tracing parallelisms between Jane Eyre's characters and computers:

Perhaps my computer had become more of a task-master than I imagined. Unlike the singular relationship pen has to paper, my computer holds all my tasks, so when I open the desktop’s folders, my attention remains divided among the projects I must sort through before starting on the one I choose. Putting pen to paper isolates the task at hand to the plain work of putting words on paper. Plain like Jane Eyre, without adornment, straightforward. My computer had become Blanche Ingram, right down to her alabaster skin. (Amy Wink)

And a new novel that contains some Jane Eyre references. USA Today reviews Special Topics on Calamity Physics by Marisha Peissl.

Blue van Meer, the narrator and heroine of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, is a Keats-quoting wunderkind at the prestigious St. Gallway School in Stockton, N.C., gracefully able to reference works of both high (Jane Eyre) and dubious (Remembering "Solid Gold") literary merit.

EDIT: And yet more:

VueWeekly also reviews the Edmonton's production of Jane Eyre:

MacEwan brings the classic Charlotte Bronte novel to the festival, and I can’t help but wonder: why? It is such an elaborate production with an excessive cast that it sticks out. There is nothing Fringe about it. That said, they do not butcher, nor do they flatter, John Caird’s play.

And Georgia Straight reviews Peissl's book:

(Blue van Meer) jumpy overanalysis of everything and everyone is just one pleasure: “I had very little experience dealing with Dark Pasts, apart from close readings of Jane Eyre (Brontë, 1847) and Rebecca (Du Maurier, 1938) and though I’d always secretly seen splendor in melancholic chills, ashy circles stamped under the eyes, wasted silence, now, knowing each of them had suffered (if Hannah could be believed) it worried me.” Every sentence is that encrusted, that delicious.

Categories: In_the_News,Books, Theatre, Music, Jane_Eyre