The Brontës as musical styles

A columnist from Broadway World recommends the wonderful Glass Town:

You might call Branwell the Zeppo Marx of the Brontë Family...

Like the young crooner whose main function was to serve straight lines to his star wisecracking brother Groucho, Branwell Brontë, though he achieved a bit of literary success before succumbing of alcoholism, is quite often the forgotten sibling, next to his star sisters Anne, Charlotte and Emily.

Composer/lyricist Miriam Pultro generously offers the Brontë big brother a spotlight moment or two in her exuberant and enjoyable rock concert musical Glass Town which plays its last three performances at The Tank this week (tickets $25), but it's really about the sisters.

Named for a fantasy world created by all four siblings through individual literary contributions, Glass Town on stage is a collection of original songs that express themes found in Brontë novels, explore their familial relationships and most effectively, hone into the artistic need to create ("Breathe") and the desire to be remembered ("Forever Known").

The author assigns each sibling a contemporary musical style to reflect their lives and works, with herself stationed at the keyboard playing Charlotte as a hard rocker. Playing bass, Katrien Van Riel's Emily is an introspect alt-rock vocalist and Emma Claye's Anne is a heart-on-her-sleeve indie pop specialist. Rhythm guitarist Branwell, played by Eddy Marshall, appears a bit emo at first, but after a few beers he transforms into a swaggering bluesman, who, perhaps a bit ego-bruised by the success of his sisters, seems intent on taking over the proceedings and bringing his act into the audience.

Playing behind them the night I attended were Music Director Alex Petti (guitar), Laura Zawarski (violin), Anthime Miller (cello) and Emma Kroll (drums).

The few spoken word moments in the piece are highlighted by a letter from Charlotte rejecting a suitor's marriage proposal, politely noting, "Mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you."

Under Daniella Caggiano's direction, the lead quartet always looks like they're having a lot of fun being with each other and making music as a family, and I had a lot of fun watching them. (Michael Dale)

According to Town & Country, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is one of 'The 35 Best Books About Time Travel'.

5. The Eyre Affair

In this version of Great Britain circa 1985, time travel is routine. Our protagonist is Thursday Next, a literary detective, who is placed on a case when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel.

Bonus: The Eyre Affair is the first in a seven book series following Thursday. (Emily Burack)

Well, it's not so much time travel as book travel, though.

A columnist from Lancaster Online reflects on 'books penned by women over the ages'.

Charlotte Brontë echoed Wollstonecraft through the musings of her literary protagonist. In “Jane Eyre” (1847), Jane insists that “women ... need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do.” (It’s worth noting that Charlotte Brontë initially wrote under a male pseudonym, Currer Bell, in order to get published.) (Kabi Hartman)

Bustle is anxiously waiting for season 2 of Bridgerton.

If you’re obsessed with Bridgerton, chances are you also enjoy other 19th century English romances from throughout literature, too — say Pride and Prejudice, or Wuthering Heights. What is it about brooding, borderline toxic (OK, in Heathcliff’s case, full-on toxic) men that readers and viewers can’t get enough of? Jonathan Bailey, aka Anthony Bridgerton himself, asked himself the same question ahead of Bridgerton Season 2. “It’s interesting to get behind these Heathcliff and Darcy characters and explore why romantic male figures are so harsh and toxic towards women,” he said in a March 20 interview with Radio Times. [...]

And if Bailey’s comparison to literature’s most beloved, grumpy heroes has you intrigued, you’re in luck — because he means it. One production still from Season 2 teases a very soaked Anthony à la Colin Firth in 1995’s Pride and Prejudice miniseries. (Here’s hoping for a moment as dreamy as the 2005 hand flex, too.) And yes, the whole premise for this season — an enemies-to-lovers situation between Anthony and Kate (Simone Ashley) — is sure to ring delightfully familiar for Jane Austen and Brontë sister stans. (Grace Wehniainen)

While Independent (Ireland) tries (and fails) to get the whole Bridgerton phenomenon.

It seems to be aimed at a younger audience who have never seen the BBC’s sublime Pride and Prejudice from 1995 – which in today’s binge-and-move-on-to-the-next-thing culture is practically prehistoric – or the same broadcaster’s superlative 2006 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Pat Stacey)

Vulture focuses on season 2 of Sanditon:

Who thought we’d be here again? Sanditon went from definitely canceled to “it’s coming back for at least two more seasons, but without that main guy.” We last saw Sanditon in the U.S. in February 2020. It’s fitting that as so much has changed in our lives, so the writers seem to have tossed 90% of the show’s storylines in the garbage and started over. A move I applaud! It’s very Into the Woods-after-intermission. What happens after the Jane Austen plot runs out? Well, clearly, we move onto Charlotte Brontë. But first, let’s talk briefly about our absent leading man. [...]

Alexander Colbourne is our Mr. Rochester of the season. Again, I think it is very fun that they’re taking an Austenian show and injecting tropes from later literary periods. He’s the wealthy widower recluse who needs a governess for his child and niece. He’s fine. I’m hoping the writers learned from season one and don’t just have him yell at Charlotte all the time and then go, “THUS IS LOVE.” (Alice Burton)

AnneBrontë.org takes a look at the month of March in the Brontë novels.