Enduring Strength

On the Edmonton Journal you can watch a video where the stage manager Al Gadowsky is talking about his latest project, A Brontë Burlesque:

He’s currently at work on Send In The Girls’s reworked edition of their Brontë Burlesque, with its particular complications (“who takes off what when?”). He stage-managed Ellen Chorley’s intricate wordless Murielle, where the play development was a form of brainstorming; “on the wall 150 stickies!” In his grad year, Gadowsky worked with Catalyst’s Jonathan Christenson and Bretta Gerecke on Whisper, an original creation for Studio Theatre. “They were amazing! The script didn’t predate the first rehearsal!” (Liz Nicholls)

CBC reviews the Manitoba production of Julie Beckman's Jane Eyre. Not a good review:

Dear reader, is a bore. (...) The trouble with this particular adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s famed 1847 novel is that it seems to have
forgotten which of those two it is. (...)
Here, though, it’s slathered on like a thick coat of paint. Do we really need a character to tell us he sat down, as he does so - or have Jane tell us that Rochester held her hand tightly, when we can clearly see for ourselves he is? The incessant reliance on narration here is a case of show and tell, and so is often an exercise in redundancy.
The great shame of this all is that in the too few moments where the narration is abandoned, and characters simply interact with one another, the enduring strength of Brontë’s writing and talent onstage shine through. Dzialoszynski and Campbell create a genuinely touching chemistry, for example, as Jane and Rochester’s thwarted romance reaches its conclusion - and they don’t need to explain to us how they’re feeling in that moment, because it’s plain to see. (Joff Schmidt)

Fast Company Magazine interviews Cary Fukunaga about his new TV series True Detective and his previous Jane Eyre 2011:

After using hand-held cameras to film non-professional actors in Sin Nombre, Fukunaga directed Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender and a cohort of stage-trained British thespians in his own adaptation of the 19th-century gothic romance Jane Eyre. He says, "I wanted to make my sophomore film as different as possible. I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I didn't want to be identifiable."
Fukunaga viewed Jane Eyre as a showcase for his craftsmanship. "It was an exercise," he says, "to make a classic film. Great 20th-century painters learned the classics before they experimented with their medium. Picasso made these romantic-era style landscapes when he was a young artist in school. You need a mastery of craft to accomplish that. It's easy to make something avant garde. To do something in the traditional way is much more brave in the sense that you're your technique is so much more exposed because there's not all this flashy stuff to distract the viewer." (Hugh Hart)

The New York Times also mentions Cary Fukunaga's previous film:

He demonstrated a lot of talent in the excellent 2011 “Jane Eyre,” but, in that case, he was working with a fine, fast-paced, pared-down screenplay (by Moira Buffini). (Mike Hale)

The film is aired this weekend on Kino TV-u (Croatia) as tportal reports:

Tu nije kraj odličnim filmovima na KINOTV-u ovoga vikenda jer u subotu od 20,15 sati možete pogledati film 'Jane Eyre' s Michaelom Fassbenderom i Miom Wasikowskom u glavnim ulogama. Ova predivna kostimirana ljubavna drama (film je bio nominiran za Oscar za najbolje kostime) nastala je prema knjizi Charlotte Brontë, a brojni kritičari smarali su da je Fassbenderova uloga Rochestera najbolja gluma viđena tijekom 2011. (Translation)

The Independent interviews actor and writer Joanna Scanlan:

You’ve played Bessie in Jane Eyre, and now you’re playing Catherine Dickens in The Invisible Woman...
Jane Eyre wasn’t written by Dickens, you do know that? You’re from The Independent...
I know! I was going to ask... How does acting in period drama compare to playing nurses and civil servants? (Oscar Quine)

The Millions reviews Curtis Berman's Raw:

Harriet is at risk of angering the Book Goddess as well — especially in one fantasy involving Sepp and a first-edition DeLillo as a sex prop — but this is all part of her liberating embrace of genre fiction and their attendant clichés. She first fancies herself an existential heroine from a Camus novel or as a proto-feminist character out of Charlotte Brontë. (Matt Seidel)

We found this reference in an article on Ghana Web perplexing:

Yet, it, too, that is, the Council of American Witches, says it does not worship Satan or the devil. What, then, do witchcraft and Satanism mean or have in common? Generally, why should America perceive the Church of Satan as Mr. Heathcliff, the monstrous protagonist of Emile (sic) Brontë’s class “Wuthering Heights”? What is so wuthering about the Church of Satan? (Francis Kwarteng)

Anna Maxted from The Guardian is joining a chorus:

At a Christmas karaoke party, every single person, even the most cross-eyed drunk, was pitch perfect – except me. Foolishly, I attempted Wuthering Heights. My caterwauling offended the karaoke organiser, who turned down my microphone.

TV Grapewine spotted a Brontë reference on the final episode of Sweet Home Alabama (Season 4):

Nate and Kelsey meet up one last time and he gives her a rose he took from one of the dates they went on at the opera house. She quotes Wuthering Heights and says she is now living it. She tearfully says she hates disappointing people and that it is over.

 Modoration on new year's resolutions:

So make a resolution to just read something, The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent, Anna and the French Kiss, the sports page, a silly blog about mid-January resolutions. Even if Brontë never becomes your beach read, I think your English teachers will thank Lord Byron just to know you are reading at all. (Cara)

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) on anonymity in literature:

Systrarna Brontë debuterar 1848 under androgyn pseudonym: Currer, Ellis och Acton Bell. Då kommer Charlottes ”Jane Eyre”, Emilys ”Svindlande höjder” och Annes ”Främlingen på Wildfell Hall”. Trion gjorde skandalsuccé med dessa berättelser om starka kvinnor, demoniska män och spritens förbannelse. Många recensenter trodde att det rörde sig om tre bröder, för detta var verk ”av sällsynt manlig råhet”, särskilt ”Svindlande höjder”. (Ulrika Knutson) (Translation) 

asca (Italy) publishes the ratings of last Thursday's airing of Wuthering Heights 1992 on Rai Movie:

su Rai Movie il film ''Emili (sic) Brontë's Wuthering Heights'' (''Cime tempestose'') raggiunge nella parte finale quota 614 mila spettatori (2.08%)

An couple of alerts for today, January 11:

In Roanoke, Virginia:

Tomorrow, January 11, brings the first Grandin Theatre Classic Film Series screening of the new year. The 1939 version of "Wuthering Heights" will be shown in the Grandin's main auditorium at 10 a.m. The Classic Film Series screenings, presented by Friendship Retirement Community, occur on the second Saturday of each month and offer movie fans a great opportunity to see favorite oldies or discover unfamiliar gems as they were meant to be seen on the big screen. And the best part is admission is free. (Jeffrey McGullion, Examiner)

In Waldorf, Maryland:

Start Time: 10:00 AM, January 11
Join us for Chicks For Lit, a book club for women (and those who love to read books by and about women)! This month we are reading "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. Copies of this month's selection will be available at Waldorf West Library.
Charles County Public Library - Waldorf West Branch

Urban Legends Revealed devotes a post to "Were the Brontë Sisters Raised as Vegans?", which is obviously revealed as false; Wielki Buk (in Polish) reviews Villette; A Musical Feast posts about Agnes Grey; Krimserei (in German) reviews Jane Eyre.