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Saturday, September 30, 2006

Saturday, September 30, 2006 12:28 pm by M.   No comments
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publishes a review of the on-going performances of After Mrs. Rochester that we have commented previously:
Like writer Jean Rhys, the central character in "After Mrs. Rochester," the auditorium, the library to which it is attached and even the community of Braddock that surrounds it, have all endured despite hardships and reversals of fortune that should have ended in destruction.

"I thought it was right (for the play) because it reflects a quality she had," says Karla Boos, Quantum artistic director. "Like her, it's hanging in there." (...)
The play is set in England in 1957. But the audience also is inside Rhys' imagination as she works on what can best be described as a prequel or backstory to "Jane Eyre."

Bronte's characters -- Edward Rochester and his wife, Bertha, a madwoman confined in the attic of his ancestral home, as well as Grace Poole, the woman charged with taking care of the mad Mrs. Rochester -- all come to life in scenes that draw parallels between Rhys' past and present reality and that of Bertha's.

"It's the story of her, as well as the characters she wrote about," says Boos who plays Rhys. "It's about an artist trying to make a piece of work from her point of view who had difficulty trying to be an artist and a mother at the same time. She really moves me." (...) (Alice T. Carter) (In the picture: Robin Walsh (left) as Bertha Rochester and Mikelle Johnson as young Jean Rhys. Credits: Mary Mervis/Quantum Theatre. Source).
On the other hand, we have to report something on the intense promotional campaing of Diane Setterfield's book The Thirteenth Tale that we have presented before. There's no day without a press mention of its Jane-Eyrish background of influences. Among the many examples that we could quote, we have chosen this article published in The Globe and Mail by Michelle Orange:
The Thirteenth Tale, British writer Diane Setterfield's debut novel (in her earlier life, she was an academic specializing in modern French literature), sends out such an invitation, and she has been rewarded, by her publisher, at least, with comparisons to the Brontës and Daphne du Maurier. Setterfield sets her novel in a sort of foggy, modern anytime; we know it's post-Jane Eyre, however, as Charlotte Brontë's famous novel is the fodder, literally, for at least one plot twist and the thematic godmother of several more.
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