What was before: Plain Jane or Jane?

Sunday news.

The Acting Company tour with Polly Teale's Jane Eyre will come to Tupelo, Mississippi, next March 19 (check the complete tour dates here). And the NorthEast Mississippi Daily Journal is already paving the way for the visit with this interview to Hannah Cabell, the actress playing Jane Eyre and other actors of the company:

Hannah Cabell, who plays the title role in The Acting Company's production of "Jane Eyre," doesn't believe we get the term "plain Jane" from Charlotte Bronte's story.
"I think people put the rhyme together before the book," Cabell said. "Half of the cast argues with me and thinks that it came from the book."
The book "Jane Eyre" surprised a couple of the actors who were cast for the stage version of "Jane Eyre."
Hannah Cabell, a 29-year-old actress from New York City who plays the title role, had never read Charlotte Bronte's famous work.
"I hadn't read it until I got the job," Cabell said by cell phone from a bus somewhere south of Louisville, Ky. "I thought I had. I figured I had, but when I started reading it I realized I hadn't."
It didn't take long, though, for the story to sweep her along.
"It's a wonderful book," she said.
Matt Steiner, a 24-year-old actor who plays multiple parts in the play, also had made it through high school English without reading the book, but he had a few preconceived notions about the story.
"I think a lot of people think of it as a woman's story - a story by a woman for women," he said from a different cell phone but the same bus as Cabell. "Reading it you see it's a very intense story about people, men and women who are struggling to fit in with the social rules of the day and still be true to themselves." (...)
"I believe strongly in the production because it stays very close of Charlotte Bronte's novel," Cabell said. (...)
"The costumes are amazing," Cabell said. "The period costumes, I enjoy them, and yet I have to wear a corset for two hours."
The men get off a little easier, but Steiner said the costume he wears as Lord Ingram has a rigidity all its own.
"You have to find ways to relax with those stiff clothes," he said.
Both actors have gotten to know their characters better, thanks to the costumes. For Steiner's part, he's found himself in positions that he's seen in period photographs.
"I used to think of them as poses" for the camera, he said. "But I think they were just trying to get comfortable in their uncomfortable clothes."
Cabell said the tight fit of her clothes reflects Jane's journey.
"It's main theme is one of confinement and release," she said. "The journey of Jane is one of breaking out and finding a way to be free." (M. Scott Morris)

Returning to the original novel. A couple of days ago we mentioned a blog entry with illustrations from the 1890 edition of Jane Eyre. Regular BrontëBlog reader Chris has sent us the following additional information:

I saw your mention of the 1890 edition of Jane Eyre from Thomas Crowell. I found additional illustrations from that version at the ebay auction for that very edition. This is the link.

The picture on the right is taken from there.

Marz8earth has created 19 beautiful Jane Eyre quotes icons for the bbccostumedrama livejournal community. The quotes are from the book or from the 1997 version with Samantha Morton.

Years before Rochester and Heathcliff, the Brontës created Zamorna or A.G.A. Long before Thornfield Hall or Wuthering Heights were named, Angria or Gondal were flourishing. It's always nice to see some mentions to the juvenilia in the press:

Did You Know?

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, sisgers in one of the world's most famous writing families, began writing fiction as children:

In 1820, the Bronte family moved to the parsonage at Haworth, a small village at the edge of the moors in West Yorkshire, England. In this quiet setting, the young girls, along with brother Branwell, drew inspiration from their dramatic, desolate surroundings. Charlotte and Branwell created stories about Angria, an imaginary African village, while younger sisters Emily and Anne developed the romantic "Gondal Chronicles," set in an unnamed North country.

Today, the haunting beauty and power of the moors of West Yorkshire still captivate people through the Brontes' writings, including Charlotte's novel "Jane Eyre" (1847) and Emily's novel "Wuthering Heights" (1847). (Helen Morey in Daytona Beach News)

Ok... Angria was not exactly a village, but a whole country, and Gondal maybe has a Yorkshire-like climate but Gaaldine's climate was tropical. But these are just small corrections.

Finally, we mention this entry on I giorni della Civetta, where the 1992 version of Wuthering Heights, with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, is reviewed in Italian.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, In the News, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights