More reviews of Wasted.
What's On Stage gives it 4 stars out of 5.
Adam Lenson's playful production astonishes on many levels. Front and centre: the dazzlingly committed cast. Natasha Barnes carries the lioness's share of the script as Charlotte, who outlived her siblings and achieved a conventional marriage despite her literary leanings. Barnes brilliantly reconfirms herself as an actress of outstanding depth, investing the sensible but passionate young woman with a self-deprecating wryness and bright-eyed kindness that splits wide open when she sings: then she unleashes a wild but sweet torrent of formidably controlled frustration and anarchic abandon. She is movingly impressive as the family's increasingly sad trajectory plays out, and gets the biggest laugh of the evening with the throwaway line "f**k off, I'm writing Jane Eyre".
Molly Lynch's doe-eyed, self-effacing Anne is a vocally stunning heartbreaker, going from rocked-out emotionalism to impressive classical soprano with jaw-dropping ease. Matthew Jacobs Morgan gives drug-addled, deluded brother Branwell a fine voice and an irresistible charm that almost expiates his bizarre behaviour.
Siobhan Athwal's quirky, bitterly funny Emily is pitched at the junction between lunacy and rapture. She's a physical manifestation of an unsound mind, suggesting Emily might have been an inspiration for Jane Eyre's Mrs Rochester. At first I feared the feral physicality and face-pulling might be too much, but ultimately I found her profoundly touching, her dream-like yet ferocious vocals reminiscent of a young Kate Bush.
These Brontës wear mid-1800s garb but when they let rip musically, it's to punk, emo, progressive rock, thrash metal, even ska, spirituals and country and western, belted into omnipresent hand-held mics while roving spotlights dazzle onlookers. The raucous, ecstatic power of rock music as metaphor for the hardships of unfulfilled artistic endeavour and strife-beset lives is persuasive.
Ash commands a profligacy of musical styles with panache. Nothing sounds like a traditional showtune, but it is a haunting score full of passion, invention and often thunderous excitement. Charlotte's second act cri de cœur "(Extra)ordinary Woman" could have come off a Janis Joplin album, while Anne's twistedly lovely "The Story Of Mrs Collins" is a knockout piece of musical storytelling. This will be a cast album to savour, not least to appreciate Miller's frequently witty lyrics, which sometimes get lost in the muddy sound design. [...]
Anything as iconoclastic as this can't be perfect, and is likely to get up a lot of people's noses, to be honest. The storytelling is sketchy at times and there's a belligerent but inventive weirdness that not everyone will embrace. My advice though is to look at it as music theatre rather than a musical: buckle up and enjoy the thrill ride. As ambitious a step forward in the genre as anything for years, this grittily exhilarating show is essential viewing if you're interested in the future of the British musical. (Alun Hood)
Jonathan Baz Reviews... gives it 4 stars too.
Still on stage,
Stratford-upon-Avon Herald reviews the
local production of Jane Eyre.
Impressive has to be an understatement when describing Tread the Boards’ adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, currently playing at Stratford’s Attic Theatre.
Having just written hundreds of thousands of words worth of PhD thesis on Brontë and failed miserably in condensing it I admit I was curious, even slightly sceptical, as to how this Victorian door-stopper could be squeezed into a two-and-a-half-hour production without losing the plot. [...]
Oh me of little faith. Not only did this small but beautifully formed company blow away any reservations I might have had, this fantastic production actually blew me away. It is sophisticated, captivating and ingeniously done.
One major revelation was that never could so few props convey so much information. This visual shorthand was used so cleverly and imaginatively, in much the same vein as Brontë does herself in written form. [...]
Director Andrew Smith admits it was a big ask to bring together seven versatile actors who could sing, play, dance and double up on roles. But his mission is most certainly accomplished, they do, indeed, do each of these things impeccably. They even play most of the live sound effects and compose the songs themselves and, much like the props, these sound elements capture the spirit and storms of Brontë’s atmospheric novel with the slightest touch that is nevertheless loaded with significance.
In short, go and see it. (Sarah Halford)
Quills and Quire features a series of classical novels designed by Ingrid Paulson.
Their plots are as taut as Gillian Flynn’s and their social takes as pointed as Zadie Smith’s. Yet for all their contemporary relevance, classic novels by authors such as Edith Wharton and Emily Brontë too frequently come packaged behind oil-portrait covers with swooping antique fonts.
That disconnect is what inspired Toronto graphic designer Ingrid Paulson to publish such classics in brilliant colours and with spare design elements, channelling a modern European aesthetic. Paulson, whose cover designs include André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs and Tamara Faith Berger’s Queen Solomon, launched her own Gladstone Press with an ultramodern redesign of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights on July 30, Brontë’s birthday. [...]
The colours are offset by a small bar that showcases the book’s title and gives a glimpse of an etching. The full sketch is revealed as the reader opens the book to the title page. For Wuthering Heights, Paulson found an image of the English moors. [...]
While reissues will be Gladstone Press’s immediate focus, Paulson hopes to one day discover and publish her own contemporary Brontë. “This is the first step in what I hope is not just an experiment,” she says. “I want this to be a full publishing press.” (Ryan Porter)
The Times quotes from
Villette in a leading article on how 'online gaming is being cited in divorce petitions as a cause of marital breakdown'.
Lucy Snowe, the protagonist of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette, says of her beloved when he is lost at sea: “I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another degree; he is more my own.” The deprivation suffered by people married to online gaming addicts is arguably even greater, since their partners may be physically present but psychologically lost. There is no universal remedy but there is a salutary lesson in the nature of human relationships. It might help to spend less time on the console, and more in bed.
Buried Under Books posts about Lyndsay Faye's
Jane Steele. Jane Eyre's Library (in Spanish) features a Chinese/English bilingual edition of
Jane Eyre.
Finally, an alert for later today in London as seen on
This Is Local London.
Michel Legrand and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra '60 years of music and movies'
Royal Festival Hall, South Bank London, London, SE1 8XX
18 September
7:30pm to 9:30pm
Legrand's impact on 20th century music cannot be overstated and this once-in-a-lifetime concert celebrates the unforgettable scores from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Yentl, Summer of 42, and Wuthering Heights.
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