"A Peter Greenaway inspired take on the lives of the Brontë sisters"

The Pittsburgh Morning Sun has an article on today's talk at the Pittsburg State University by Dr Susan Carlson.

She will focus her lecture on three women — Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte and Florence Nightingale. Carlson has done research on original source documents, including letters, at the British Museum and British Library in London.
There was plenty of material for her to study. In those pre-telephone and pre-Internet days, letters were the primary form of communication. “Back then, in London, the letters would come four or five times a day,” Carlson said.Shelley, Bronte and Nightingale all show clear signs of suicidal depression, she said. [...]
Bronte was author of the beloved classic “Jane Eyre,” as well as other novels. “She wrote the novel ‘Villette’ while almost paralyzed by depression,” Carlson said, noting that this is reflected in the book’s “nitty-gritty” approach to life and downbeat ending. [...]
Despite their suicidal depression, Shelley, Bronte and Nightingale all died from natural causes. Shelley died at 53 from a brain tumor, and Bronte at 38 from complications of pregnancy. Nightingale died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 90. (Nikki Patrick)

Back on the other side of the Atlantic, The Scotsman reviews Tamasha's Wuthering Heights briefly:

If you want evidence that it's not only political and economic power that can move sharply from west to east, though, then you could do much worse than race to the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow, where Tamasha Theatre Company and Oldham Coliseum are presenting their no-holds-barred Bollywood musical version of Wuthering Heights, set not on a blasted heath in Yorkshire, but in the sun-parched deserts of Rajasthan. (Joyce McMillan)

And so does The Herald, which gives three stars to this production:

Emily Bronte's windswept melodrama concerning the doomed romance between swarthy urchin Heathcliff and independent woman Cathy was a high-end Mills and Boon of its day. Similarly, there are few artforms more unashamedly populist than Bollywood. Which makes both parties ripe for reinvention in Anglo-Asian company Tamasha's latest foray into big-stage spectacle, here in co-production with Oldham Coliseum and the Lyric, Hammersmith.
Cathy becomes headstrong merchant's daughter Shakuntala, who falls for street kid turned self-made man Krishan, who, following Cathy's death, wanders away his pain for years, outcast in the desert. But Kristine Landon-Smith's production of Deepak Verma's text, with music and lyrics by Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee, is an anodyne affair, with little heat and dust on offer.
The vivid colour co-ordination of neatly-pressed emerald shirts and scarlet saris may flow splendidly between a handsome cast, but there's little life beyond. Only Youkti Patel and Pushpinder Chani's bright-eyed duets in any way charm. Musically, things really fall down. Despite a welter of top-notch musicians, the recorded score sounds like a karaoke backing track with English folk-air whimsy. The cast's resultant miming may be appropriate to the heightened world of film, but here resembles a 1980s edition of Top of the Pops. Bronte and Bollywood should have been a fiery match. This is pure saccharine, all sugar and very little spice. (Neil Cooper)

As usual, we beg to differ with the 'high-end Mills and Boon of its day'. We are afraid that the writer hasn't even looked at any review of the time. That is, unless Mills and Boon books these days are being described as 'rude', 'disagreeable', 'coarse', 'rugged', 'shocking', 'crude' or, indeed, 'original' and 'powerful'.

Also in need of a correction is the Knutsford Guardian. In an article about the recent grant given to Elizabeth Gaskell's Manchester house someone felt the need to actually change the standard press release distributed to many news outlets.

Mrs Gaskell lived at Plymouth Grove for 15 years, and entertained Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte and John Ruskin there.

And either they know something no one else knows or they are wrong, as Emily Brontë never even met Elizabeth Gaskell. She was dead by the time her sister Charlotte Brontë was introduced to Elizabeth Gaskell and became friends with her and stayed in the house.

Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is interviewed by BND. We are quite glad to hear the following:

Q: Is any classic immediately improved by the presence of zombies?
A: I think you have to be careful not to overdo it. "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" works because "Pride and Prejudice" is one of those books that's so ingrained in our consciousness. Everybody has read it or is familiar with its existence. But I don't know that we need "Wuthering Heights Reloaded" or "War and Peace and More War." (Connie Ogle)

USA Today has an article on Joe Queenan's Closing Time. A memoir. As before, his father is mentioned:

His dad was a ninth-grade dropout who had "a touch of the poet" and read Dickens, Fitzgerald and the Brontës (Bob Minzesheimer)

The Deagol Brothers reveal the following project to Bostonist:

We're working on several other screenplays; one's sort of a Peter Greenaway inspired take on the lives of the Bronte sisters. . . (Leor Galil)

EDIT: We read on FilmFreak more about this project:

What is next for each of you?

Eric: We are currently writing a screenplay loosely based on the lives of the Bronte sisters, an action script titled “Thermal Shock” about a homicidal actor, and a sci-fi septology that spans eons. (...)
Deagol brothers: The current screenplay we’re working on is less based on the Brontes and more inspired by them. MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE is from a distinctly male perspective so we all felt the need to work on something more girl-oriented. It’ll be like a Peter Greenaway movie crossed with The Godfather but instead of guns and the mafia it’ll be about women and the creative process. It’s sort of hard to describe in its current form. We’ve got some other things we’re working on but until we secure any type of funding they’re just dreams. (oxfordfilmfreak)

A couple of blogs: Die neuen Glaswegians reviews Tamasha's Wuthering Heights in German. And Paulas bokblog posts in Swedish about Agnes Grey.

Categories: Books, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, Music, Talks, Theatre, Villette, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights