Jane Eyre in Vancouver

Polly Teale's adaptation of Jane Eyre opens today, January 25, in Vancouver (Canada):

United Players of Vancouver presents

JANE EYRE
by Charlotte Brontë
adapted by Polly Teale

directed by Tom Kerr

Jane Eyre ... Roselle Healy
Mr Rochester ... Tariq Leslie
Bertha ... Julia Henderson

January 25 - February 17
Thu-Sun, 8pm

Preview: January 24($6.00)
Talkback: January 31

Jericho Arts Centre
1675 Discovery Street, Vancouver, B.C. Canada

From the production notes:

What is fascinating about Teale’s adaptation,” Tom [Kerr] continues, “is how she uses two actresses to show the very passionate and the very suppressed sides of the same character. Adopting an imaginative movement style popularized by the experimental ‘Theatre de Complicity,’ Teale has the production begin with the two actors fused as one – the first is straight-laced Jane and the other is her repressed self bursting to do what Victorian society did not permit. It is a highly courageous and innovative interpretation that should entertain and surprise everyone.”
Teale’s version of Jane Eyre has evolved since it was first performed in the UK in 1997. It has now been staged around the world to enthusiastic reviews. “It will be such a treat for Vancouver audiences to get to see this wonderfully dramatic retelling of a great classic.” (...)
“Jane Eyre is an ambitious project for United Players,” notes Movement Director Adam Henderson. “It is Brontë's classic romance performed as a psychological study. It is full of love, shadows and confusion. It is classical literature presented in a modern European style, which minimizes the sets and extends the range of the actors.
“Polly Teale wrote this adaptation as physical theatre which, if done well, can create illusions of cinematic proportion. The trick is to spark the audience’s imagination with emotionally expressive dynamic movement. No illusion is more convincing than the one we see in our own mind’s eye.
“Tom is directing, staging and doing the heavy work on this show, I am polishing specific moments. We have no intention of replicating a previous production. Instead we search for our own way to express epic themes. We intend to highlight the emotional story with our movement style, making explicit what is socially suppressed.

Picture: Roselle Healy as Jane Eyre and Julia Henderson as Bertha. Photo: Doug Williams. Source.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Theatre