Cultural vandalism and elite writers

Inspired by a comment on Twitter about Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre, Lyn Gardner discusses stage adaptations of novels on The Stage.

Recently, I described Sally Cookson’s staging of Jane Eyre as theatre at its most original.
A theatre company retorted on Twitter: “Suspect being an adaptation of Jane Eyre may rule it out on that count.” It may well have been a tongue-in-cheek response, but I think it’s time we got over the idea that somehow adaptation is always second best in the theatre. Or indeed second best to reading the book. [...]
It’s like trying to compare plums with peaches, rather than thinking how nice it is that we can enjoy both.
Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, adaptation was often a poor relation to the original and seen in those terms. This possibly prompted the snooty reaction in some quarters to David Edgar’s version of Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, which went on to be a huge artistic and popular hit for the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1980s.
Although it looks traditional by some of today’s standards of production and design, at that time Nickleby was revelatory and the exception not the rule when it came to page-to-stage adaptations.
Theatre adaptations of classic novels often took both a literal and a literary approach in their productions. If it was Jane Austen, then there would surely be bonnets; if it was Dickens, there was an abundance of frock coats.
That’s the anthesis of what Cookson did with Jane Eyre – or indeed many of her other adaptations – or what Jeff James did with Persuasion at the Royal Exchange in Manchester earlier this year.
In those circumstances, the question often asked – is this as good as the original novel? – becomes redundant because the exercise is not about recreating the original novel. It’s not page-to-stage, but adaptation as a form of reinvention, one in which the original text is not a leash but a source of creative inspiration. So rather than cultural vandalism, the work becomes cultural regeneration that makes old stories live for new audiences.

We wholeheartedly agree with her.

In connection with the recent appeal to the '“decolonisation” of the English literature syllabus' by Cambridge student union officer, Lola Olufemi, Libby Purves suggests broadening the canon but not calling it 'unfair' in The Times.

But great books, plays and poems are not written by nation-states, and rarely by men of power. They are written by individuals, often vulnerable. When Dr Gopal says “elite white men”, who is she thinking of? Shakespeare the country glovemaker’s son and precarious wandering actor? Dickens, thrown into the blacking factory at 12 with a father in prison? The bankrupt Defoe? Samuel Johnson, dependent on arrogant patrons, who described Jamaican plantations as “dreadful wickedness” and shocked an Oxford dinner party by drinking to “the next insurrection of negroes”? He maintained in his household a freed slave who became his main heir.
Or maybe your cartoon “elitist” is William Blake, a tradesman apprentice often mocked for what we now call mental health “issues”. Or the debt-ridden addict Coleridge. Or George Eliot, having to disguise her gender and unconventional love life. Austen herself was a dependent spinster aunt in an age with little respect for such women (or for governesses like the Brontë sisters). How “elite” is poor Keats, orphaned at eight, nursing his brother’s TB in damp rooms and dead by 25, an outsider who felt his “name was writ in water”? Maybe your idea of a privileged establishment man is Milton, defying parliament and censorship in the magnificent Areopagitica, going blind, dying poor.
To have them all dismissed as Bullingdon bravos, swaggering around at the expense of BME genius, is a bit harsh.

We wholeheartedly agree with her too.

Independent (Ireland) asks model Claudine Keane about her favourite things, including her favourite book:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I studied it for my Leaving Cert and had an amazing English teacher, Ray O'Neill. (Elle Gordon)

This columnist from Capital Gazette recalls the words of English film producer Alison Owen:

That’s when Chess glanced at her watch and announced, “We need to wind this up. I have a class at the Anne Arundel Community College.”
“Really,” I said. “What’s the class?”
Chess replied, “It’s a Peer Learning Partnership class taught by a wonderfully enthusiastic teacher comparing the writings of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters.”
That reminded me of a comment by English film producer Alison Owen, who said, “When I need order in my life, I read Jane Austen, like ‘Pride and Prejudice.” When I’m feeling more emotional … when I need that passionate punch, I turn to the Brontës, such as ‘Jane Eyre.’ ”
As we ended our conversation, I saw a woman of many dimensions — with a bit of Austen and a bit of the sisters Brontë — but her gift of good genes and her practice of stretching the mind and exercising the body are each predictors of successful aging, of which she is a glowing example. (Phil Burgess)

Finally, a Penzance ghost story on AnneBrontë.org.