Brontë in Wellington

A new production of Polly Teale's Brontë opens today in Wellington, New Zealand:

BrontëWritten by Polly Teale
Directed by Jayne Grace
Production Manager: Shannon Tubman
23 May - 1 June 2018

Charlotte Brontë: Molly Sullivan
Emily Brontë: Hannah McKenzie
Anne Brontë: Nell Windsor
Branwell Brontë: Isham Redford
Patrick Brontë: Lee Dowsett
Bertha (from Jane Eyre): Charlotte Thomas
Cathy (from Wuthering Heights): Ange Bickford

Stagecraft's second production of 2018 will be the New Zealand premiere of Polly Teale’s masterpiece, Brontë.
The play is about the three Brontë sisters, who lived single and isolated lives on the Yorkshire moors, yet wrote some of the most powerful fiction ever penned. This play digs into the Brontë family dynamic and explores how the seemingly mundane, isolated and oppressed outward lives of these spinsters was a poor façade for the passionate and brilliant women underneath.

Set predominantly in 1845 (it jumps around a bit), Charlotte Brontë is just about to write Jane Eyre and Emily is writing Wuthering Heights. During this time, women couldn’t publish under their own gender or even enter a library – they had a very limited part in public life. This play combines the real and the imaginary, as the Brontë’s fictional characters haunt their creators.

This production will be a beautiful voyage into the lives of English literature’s early feminists.

Scoop has further information on the production.