Jane Eyre's wit

Shared Experience's revival of Polly Teale's Brontë at Newbury's Watermill Theatre is still getting good reviews. The Telegraph gives it four stars.

You can’t do it, of course. What, put the lives of the Brontë sisters on stage? Their writing lives? Their interior lives? All that achievement, all that detail – compressed into a mere handful of hours? Preposterous!
And yet, if anyone could conceivably make a decent fist of the attempt, it’s Polly Teale, working in tandem with her co-artistic director at Shared Experience, Nancy Meckler.
With two other major Brontë projects behind her (Jane Eyre; After Mrs Rochester), not to mention an earlier incarnation of this show, you could joke that Teale would be the perfect person to choose Haworth’s immortal siblings as her specialist subject on Mastermind – except that the title of that programme conjures the patriarchal presumptions the trio contended with.
This is an evening that draws you pell-mell into a world of male Victorian constraint and seething feminine rebellion, as three modern-day women, picking over the novels on a wooden kitchen table, framed against an austere black-brick wall, swiftly adopt the roles of Charlotte, Emily and Anne – fusing commentary with conversation.
The approach is one of physical emancipation conducted under exacting rules of engagement – naturalism whirls free of plodding bio-drama, reaching a place of ardent, poetic expression, before being brought back to earth by salient facts: deaths in the family, the worries of debt, the key moments of publication.
There’s so much material, such a hectic pace, that it sometimes feels too breathless for its own good. I yearned for more hush. And yet the whole is more than the sum of its parts, brilliantly conveying how a creative furnace roared within the rigid enclosures of the age and perhaps only became so intense because of those restrictions.
Individual points of detail can be less persuasive than the overall impression: the wildness and knowing modernity of Elizabeth Crarer’s Emily contrasts too crudely with the pent-up primness of Kirstin Atherton’s Charlotte. And while Mark Edel-Hunt admirably suggests the drunken decline of their brother Branwell, crushed by the weight of familial expectation, would he really have grabbed at his eldest sister’s crotch to confront her with her frustrated longings? I doubted that.
But it didn’t dispel for me the essential beauty and bravery of a piece which soars on the wings of imagination, propelling us towards the mystery of life and art, and attaining a transcendence that matches Emily’s wonder-making observation: “I write to be unknown, unknowing, to exist outside and beyond myself.” (Dominic Cavendish)

The Independent discovers that writer Mavis Cheek is a Brontëite:

Choose a favourite writer and say why you like her/himMy favourite ever book is probably Jane Eyre. I read it at a key time and on re-reading it as I get older, I experience different things in it. First it was about this poor, put-upon character, than it was her romance with Mr Rochester and then it was her wit. As I get older, I realise how wit is as important as the philosophical stuff.

Jane Eyre is also this week's recommended book on AnnArbor.com and given three stars out of five for 'entertainment value' and five out of five for 'depth of meaning'.

Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” is without-a-doubt my favorite novel. From little Jane’s being locked-up in the scary red room at the beginning of the story all the way until her much anticipated coupling with a maimed Rochester, the plot of this classic novel is simply enchanting.
Jane Eyre is a plain-looking orphan with a fiery spirit. She is being raised along side her three cousins under the watch of a cruel aunt who despises her. When Jane tries to stand up for herself, she is shipped off to Lowood, a low-end boarding school for the underprivileged. Conditions at the school were so horrible that many of Jane’s classmates died of consumption and other diseases.
After many years at Lowood, Jane decides to venture outside of the academic world and to seek employ as a governess. She is brought unto staff at Thornfield manner, under the peculiar and secretive Mr. Rochester, in order to supervise the master’s young French ward, Adele. Jane meets Rochester under odd circumstances. She continues to be both intrigued and baffled by her master. Eventually, her curiosity turns into feelings of love. The reader will find herself believing that Jane’s affections for Rochester are returned, though there is no clear evidence of how he is feeling.
Almost every imaginable obstacle (and really quite a few highly unimaginable obstacles) is thrown the pair’s way, hindering their ability to come together romantically. As if large divides in age and social status weren’t difficult enough! “Jane Eyre” has it all—love, mystery, strength and courage, redemption, estrangement and faith. It is refreshing to find such a strong and resolute female character in classic literature. You’ll fall in love with Jane and find yourself wishing beyond all hope that she can find a happy ending with Mr. Rochester.
You may like this book if…you crave a strong female literary lead, you enjoy against-all-odds love stories, you like unexpected plot points, you enjoy the classic governess novel, you are familiar with competing models of Christianity, you like contemplating nature versus nurture, you are intrigued by mystic story elements, you enjoy witnessing a plain Jane’s romance
You may not like this book if… you had a horrible childhood and do not care to rehash these memories, you do not appreciate the author’s portrayal of the mentally ill as a shameful burden, you have a hard time falling head-over-heels for the arrogant and strange Rochester, you are deathly afraid of ghosts or fire. (Melissa LR Handa)

A little piece of news concerning Jane Eyre 2011. Its imdb entry lists Georgia Bourke (on the right hand side) as Leah.

Not so enthusiastic is the vision of 'finals time' in The Oklahoma Daily:

Whoa ... where did the past eight hours go and why can’t you remember any of it? Did I just go into a light coma or a really heavy nap? Oh wait, your finger is on the last page of “Jane Eyre.” Yeah for progress! (Joshua Boydston)

Katharine Hepburn's biographer Charlotte Chandler talks to the Chicago Tribune and mentions tour for the Theatre Guild playing Jane Eyre in passing. The Deccan Herald reminisces about discovering the classics on an old sofa.

Flickr user : Elizabeth : has uploaded a picture of two old editions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights together with a personal story and another Flickr user, keartona has posted a picture of one of the possible sources for Thornfield Hall: North Lees Hall.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Theatre