The Gang of Three Writing Brontës

The SignPost reminisces about the June performances of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre. The Musical in Salt Lake City:

A small group of WSU performing arts students beat the “summer blues” by taking part in the musical Jane Eyre, about a young governess that falls in love with her employer, Mr. Rochester. Their affair is tainted by haunting past relationships, though their love for each other eventually melts the complications.
The cast included Nathan Krishnan, an art education major, and Marie Bently, a vocal performance major. The rest of the cast came together from various other parts of Utah. They performed for two weeks in June at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City.
Bently portrayed Blanche Ingram, a young noblewoman seeking the love of Mr. Rochester and his estate.
“The show was a great way to not only stay involved with music, but I was able to meet some awesome people in the cast and gain experience with a role I hadn’t really had before,” Bently said. (...)
Krishnan played the part of St. John Rivers, Jane’s great friend and potential suitor. (Alexandra Nisula)

Artslink reviews a South African production of The Mystery of Irma Vep:

If you know your movie classics such as Wuthering Heights, The Mummy's Curse and Rebecca as well as the works of Ibsen, Shakespeare, Poe, the Brontë sisters, Omar Khayyam, and Oscar Wilde, then you'll appreciate the clever "borrowing" of famous lines or scenes. If not, you'll just enjoy the fun and marvel at the costume changed. (Caroline Smart)

ToTheCenter talks about Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Village:

The flyleaf suggests the book and tale are "in the tradition of James Harriot" but I think it goes well beyond such a comparison. Harriot was England - Yorkshire while Thomas is Ireland - County Down - the North. It's a bit different; just ask the people who live in both places. That's not to say there aren't fine literary connections between the two places, after all the Rev. Patrick Brontë was born in County Down (he's the father of the gang of three writing Brontës: Charlotte, Emily and Anne) and raised his literary clan in Yorkshire. (Tim Holland)

Mike Wilder in the Southern States Times-News remembers his days as college student:

That made me think I wasn’t the only one who never read all of Hamlet, Macbeth and The Tempest when they were assigned in high school English classes – though to be honest, there wasn’t much I did read thoroughly as a student. (I made an exception for Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” I liked the idea of the Byronic anti-hero, seeing it as a way to glamorize my misfit status and accompanying crankiness).

OPB News on alternative families:

I remember thinking as a kid that when it came to the prospect of having an interesting life, I was at a distinct disadvantage. I had two entirely conventional parents, whereas cool fictional characters almost never did -- Cinderella, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Peter Pan, Superman, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, each and every one an orphan. And they all had some sort of fascinating guardian they'd picked up along the way, intriguing siblings of a sort. (NPR)

Bristol Palin's re-engagement also finds its way into Brontë news. In the New York Times:

Not exactly “Wuthering Heights” or “Jane Eyre.” (“Reader, I hung out with him.”) Not even “Twilight,” although, like Levi, the perpetually teenaged Edward Cullen never managed to get through 12th grade. (Gail Collins)

Now that we mention Twilight. What about a bit of Twilight zone?

“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” the latest cinematic adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular “Twilight” series, begins and ends in a meadow. It’s a meadow so pretty and perfect and purple it would make even the Brontës gag on their white-cheddar dusted popcorn. (Ariel Shapiro in The Daily Cardinal)

Wuthering Heights Wednesday ends in Lit and Life, Chez Liza Lou posts about the same novel in French, A Place of Dreamers... posts several pictures of Jane Eyre 2006, Angieville is excited with the upcoming novel Jane by April Lindner (check our sidebar for more information on forthcoming books). Finally LibroLand uploaded a video review of Wuthering Heights (in Italian).

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights