Ex-Welfare Minister Frank Field compared him with Mrs Rochester, the mad woman in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre.Polly Teale does not need to prove her Brontëite-ness. The author of the plays After Mrs. Rochester, Brontë and a theatrical version of Jane Eyre is interviewed in The Cincinnati Enquirer now that the Acting Company is performing Polly Teale's play in the city:Mr Field, who claims Environment Minister David Miliband would make a much better successor to Tony Blair, said Mr Brown does not have the right personality to be Prime Minister.
"Allowing Gordon Brown into No 10 would be like letting Mrs Rochester out of the attic,' Mr Field told The Mail on Sunday.
"He has no empathy with people and you need that to be Prime Minister. Tony Blair walks and talks like a Prime Minister and Gordon Brown doesn't, that's all there is to it." (Evening Standard)
Question: How old were you when you first read "Jane Eyre"?
Answer: As a teenager, my mum and I visited the Brontes' home, Haworth House and she bought me a copy. I remember loving it. Any young woman can identify with Jane. She's stepping out into life with her fragility and hunger.
Q: What made it irresistible to translate "Jane Eyre" to the stage?
A: When I first read it, it was more of a horror story. It was fascinating coming back to it as an adult and seeing how rich it is. I started to see the possibility that you can have the madwoman as an expression of part of Jane in herself that has to be shut away. It seemed very theatrical.
You can see that inside this contained, controlled woman there is another self who is angry and afraid - and has sexuality, imagination and this great longing for experience. Because Bronte was writing in a time when she couldn't express these things herself, she created this madwoman.
Q: What do literary classics bring to a theater audience?
A: Writing an adaptation has to be another creative act just like writing the novel. In a way, your challenge is to ask yourself, what is it about this story that fascinates me?
Q: So what about Jane and Rochester as a couple?
A: The reason (the book) is so powerful is that you have these two people, both of whom believe they're unlovable, ugly and have suffered huge rejections.
In a way you're watching their armor being stripped away and they're dragged kicking and screaming to the point where they feel for each other. We all try and fight and cover ourselves as a protection. Falling in love is one of the most out-of-control experiences. So we can all identify. (Interview by Jackie Demaline)
New Brontëites: writer Anne Donovan (Buddha Da):
The book you've read more than once? I've read quite a lot more than once - the works of Dickens and George Eliot richly reward re-reading. But it would have to be Wuthering Heights. I first read it when I was in my teens and have reread with deep pleasure many times since. I like its combination of wild romanticism and grounded reality. (The Scotsman)And the aspiring writer and frequent reviewer, Jessica Dotta says on The Novel Journey:
Most writers I talk to have one—that book that changed the way they write forever. For some it is a classic. For others, it is a book about writing. For some it might be how a favorite author handled their stories book after book.And finally, Rachel Cooke writes in The Guardian again North vs South differences in Great Britain. There's no Gaskell on the article but a little bit of Brontë:
Mine is Jane Eyre. I read the novel when I was nineteen, and it was the first time I didn’t feel 'safe' in a story. I won't give any spoilers here, but the more I read, the more fearful I became that book might not end the way I wanted it to, the way I desperately needed it to.
While tearing through the pages, I also realized that the unsafe feeling kept me addicted to the story and that no matter how the book ended, I had just found my favorite novel.
But, all things being equal, I'll always feel especially well-disposed to work that I feel to be in some way 'northern': the Brontes, Arctic Monkeys, Larkin. If this makes me bigoted or two-dimensional or, worst of all, a professional Yorkshirewoman, so be it. I can't help it. In any case, I'm in good company.Categories: Brontëites, In the News, Jane Eyre, References, Theatre
hello there,
ReplyDeletei'm in that band Los Campesinos! that you mentioned above. I thought I should justify my apparent Bronte-bashing. Basically the song in question is partly about my favourite book 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'. If you've read it I'm sure you're aware of the role that Jane Eyre takes in the story. Of course, in Jane Eyre, the protagonist cops off with Mr Rochester. As a child, Jane Eyre was the only non religious book Jeanette was ever read by her controlling mother, and in the version that her mother told her she changes the story so that Jane flees to do missionary work in India with the priest and lives a celibate life, in a very similar way to Jeanette's parents. When Jeanette grows old enough to read herself, she re-reads Jane Eyre and is horrified at the true ending and it hits her pretty hard.
the song is about the keeping of secrets, primarily other peoples, and so hopefully that helps explain the use of the lyric.
please don't think we dislike jane eyre or any of bronte's works at all. we count three english literature students in our number and so wouldn't dream of slagging off such an important novel.
i hope that's okay and that nobody takes the lyric too literally.
regards, gareth Campesinos!x
Thanks for the clarification. We have edited the post accordingly. Good luck with the release of your single!
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