The ultimate underdog

The Gainesville Sun reviews the current production of Jane Eyre. The Musical by the Gainesville Community Playhouse:

For "Jane Eyre," the musical on stage at the Gainesville Community Playhouse, John Caird and Paul Gordon have written one beautiful song that lingers in the memory. Called "In the Light of the Virgin Morning," it is sung several times during the show by the title character, by her rival and in a lovely duet by the two women, Elizabeth Dean as Jane, and Amanda Dearolph has the rival, Blanche. In the musical's almost three hours running time, it's perhaps the only memorable song.
"Jane Eyre," adapted from Charlotte Brontë's classic novel of 1847 by John Caird (music, lyrics and book) and Paul Gordon (music and lyrics), might better be classified as an opera or operetta rather than as a musical. Its spoken passages are few. A singing ensemble provides the narrative for Jane's story with a musical recitative. The accompanying orchestra led by musical and vocal director, Justin Slack, plays consistently and well to a score that brings to mind echoes of "Les Miserables" (not surprisingly since this twosome also was responsible for that show). The performance by a superbly talented cast is all one could hope for; their talent far surpasses the material with which they work.
Perhaps "Jane Eyre" does not lend itself readily to a musical stage interpretation. John Caird's book for the show is intent on covering as much of Brontë's novel as he can jam into two acts and three hours. He begins when Jane is cruelly treated as a child by her aunt and sent to a school not unlike the orphanage audiences may remember from the musical, "Oliver." At the school, Jane finds but one friend, Helen. Helen's advice, given to young Jane before she inconveniently dies in a typhus epidemic, is "Forgiveness," sung by Devin D'Andrea. Repeated in the second act, the song becomes the show's mantra.
When Jane comes of age, she leaves the school for Thornfield Hall where she works as a governess to Adele, the ward of Edward Rochester, master of the mansion and the man with whom she falls in love. Until the moment that Jane arrives at Thornfield, the musical is all graveyards and gloom. It comes to life with the introduction of Mrs. Fairafax, who runs the estate. Played with humor and charm by Susan Christophy, Mrs. Fairfax is the show's comic relief with her amusing renditions of the songs, "Perfectly Nice" and "Slip of a Girl."
The love story between Jane and Rochester is familiar with the two unlikely lovers awkwardly reaching out to each other, losing their connection when the secret of Rochester's mad wife is revealed and finding each other again only after Jane's long physical and spiritual journey.
Whether the original novel is read or seen in a movie or TV play (all have been memorably produced), "Jane Eyre" is corny melodrama of the highest order, beloved by readers and viewers through the years. The musical production at the Gainesville Community Playhouse is enhanced by Elizabeth Dean as Jane who cuts through the corn and makes the character's spunk and spirituality real. The radiance of her performance gives her role integrity. And while there isn't a whole lot of chemistry between her and Ed MacKay, who plays Rochester, MacKay looks the part of lord of the manor and sings with robust authority.
Sara Beth Lentz makes a pretty, doll-like figure of Adele. Keith Newhouse plays Mason, the brother of Rochester's mad wife. Jan Cohen is a proper villain as Jane's aunt, Mrs. Reed. Bryan Faux is St. John Rivers, the man who helps Jane come to terms with her unshakeable love for Rochester. Kara Doles gives a winning performance as the child Jane. Amanda Dearolph as Blanche lends her considerable vocal talents to songs in which she takes stock of her relationship to Rochester.
Dan Christophy designed the spare set for the show (the splendor of Thornfield Hall might have been better realized with a bit more embellishment). Dori Loyd designed the eye-catching Victorian costumes. Rhonda Wilson, who directed the show, brings together all its many components flawlessly.
Everyone involved with the production gives a dedicated performance. Even if the musical score is more bland than exciting, there is much to admire in this Gainesville Community Playhouse production of "Jane Eyre." (Arline Greer)

The New Statesman presents Sam Taylor-Wood's exhibition Yes, I No (check previous posts of ours):

The second part of the exhibition, at the White Cube gallery in Mason's Yard, St James's, gives us a glimpse of quite a different kind of artist. Upstairs is Ghosts, a series of photographs taken around Haworth on the Yorkshire moors and inspired by Taylor-Wood's reading of Wuthering Heights. She has caught the spirit of the novel in this wild, unpeopled landscape, where a solitary sheep shelters from the buffeting wind in a hollow by a stone wall. Not only that, but she has captured something of the brutality and awe that is the essence of romanticism. In a leafless tree, bent by the wind on the top of a hill, she has found an image that speaks eloquently not only of the destructive passions of Cathy and Heathcliff, but also communicates her own intimations of mortality. (Sue Hubbard)

And talking about Heathcliff. It seems that the new season of Grey's Anatomy has its own Heathcliff archetype. According to USA Today:

Scottish actor Kevin McKidd, 35, plays Owen Hunt, the love interest of Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, and things start to heat up between the two tonight.
"His character is an old-fashioned tortured hero," says series creator Shonda Rhimes. "I call him Heathcliff when we're talking about him in the writers' room. (Kelley L. Carter)

The County Press (Michigan) introduces us to a new Brontëite, writer Melodie Bolt:

"I have a deep passion for mythology and fairy tales," said Bolt, "and I enjoy writing about women and how they process their emotions."
Some of Bolts' influences include: Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Bronte, Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Ursula LeGuin, and Kate Elliott. (Desirae'Thom)

The New Zealand Herald has a coda for their recent article about the Brontë Country:

During a recent visit to Britain, for instance, I was fascinated to visit the historic town of Haworth, on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, where the extraordinary Bronte sisters lived and wrote their unique novels (an experience which is the subject of this week's cover story).
Afterwards, as we drove back across the moors to the farm cottage where we were staying, we passed the ruins of a huge stone house standing forlornly in the gloom, snow started to fall, and as the wind whipped the flakes into a howling blizzard, it was easy to imagine we could hear a plaintiff voice outside calling "Heathcliff, Heathcliff" - and to see how Emily Bronte was inspired to write Wuthering Heights.
Doubtless that was all the result of an overactive imagination but, nevertheless, it is just one of the many amazing travel experiences that live on in my memory, providing a powerful incentive to look for the next destination. (Jim Eagles)

DNA India talks about (Indian) chick lit. Fortunately, the Brontë mention is a little more accurate than usual:

There’s no denying the popularity of these novels; Swati Kaushal’s Piece of Cake, Rupa Gulab’s Girl Alone and Almost Single by debutante writer Advaita Kala — to name a few — are flying off racks in bookstores across the country. But one thing rankles — the genre itself. The term ‘chick-lit’ is a modern-day concoction; the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen have been writing about young women way before Bridget Jones went on a diet. (Anjali Thomas)

The Pittsburgh City People reviews the current Open Stage performances of The Mystery of Irma Vep:

Ludlam's work is a satire and spoof, a broad farce that pays homage to (when not sending up) creaky Gothic melodramas, vaudeville and those vintage black-and-white horror classics now a staple of TCM. He liberally steals -- "lifts" is too kind a word -- from Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Frankenstein (and Bride of ... ) and nearly any horror flick that has the word "Mummy" in its title. (Alan W. Petrucelli)

Justine Picardie writes on her blog about women's magazines and their unexpected connection to Brontë scholar Clement Shorter.

All of which makes it impossible to claim that women’s magazines have represented emancipation and liberation; but it would be churlish not to recognise the freedom with which they have ranged beyond their remit. As it happens, my favourite discovery in the archive was an article by a male author in an 1898 issue of The Woman at Home, a hugely successful periodical founded by a man, William Robertson Nicoll, though he remained invisible, while ‘Annie Swan’, a pseudonym for the successful novelist, Mrs Burnett Smith, presided over each issue with her editorials and advice columns. The journalist was Clement Shorter, an avid collector of Bronte manuscripts and close friend of Nicoll’s; presumably this explains why it was in The Woman at Home, rather than an academic journal or national newspaper, that Shorter chose to reveal his discovery of two poems by Charlotte Bronte, written immediately after the deaths of her sisters Emily and Anne. The magazine also printed the first facsimiles of the handwritten originals of these and other Bronte poems, and when by chance I came across them in the archive of the Women’s Library, it was with the astonished thrill of knowing that they would be important clues to literary detectives and academics attempting to solve the puzzle of missing Bronte manuscripts.

Briefer news: Hour.ca reviews Luis Buñuel's Abismos de Pasión, today's Buffalo News's quiz has a (very) easy Brontë question, Jevons posts some very nice pictures of Haworth and the Brontë Falls, Ces mots-là, c'est Mollat reviews the recent edition by Augustin Trapenard of the Emily Brontë's devoirs, Devoirs de Bruxelles:

Ces devoirs constituent un précieux document pour appréhender au mieux le caractère tempétueux d’Emily, d’où ressortent sa préférence des animaux à la compagnie des hommes, sa sauvagerie alliée à une faculté d’argumentation exceptionnelle, son angoisse du monde extérieur associé à un grand courage physique.

Casket of Dreams talks about plain Jane Eyre, Strona po stronie discusses that same novel in Polish and bbccostumedrama posts a nice Jane Eyre 2006 wallpaper.

And finally, let us introduce you to a new blog entirely devoted to Emily Brontë: There was Charlotte, Anne, then there was....Emily

The story of the second Bronte sister, the ultimate underdog who came on top with one of the most cherished classics in the Englsh language history.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, Brontëites, Brussels, Emily_Brontë, Haworth, Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Theatre, Websites