The huge number of Jane Eyre fans will adore the presentation

Splash reviews A Noise Within's Jane Eyre.

Skillfully helmed by Geoff Elliott, Jane Eyre is a fascinating adaptation which subtly and effectively exhibits the effects of over 150 years of cultural and societal evolution and revolution since the novel was originally written. Despite her youth, poverty, and less-than-desirable social status, Jane is portrayed as a tough cookie indeed as she brazenly navigates the cold and wind-swept waters marking her journey to adulthood. Kudos to Syquia, who is almost never off the stage during the show’s two hours. Williamson’s adaptation also allows for some humor to creep into the Gothic tale. In fact, this adaptation of the novel might benefit from being just a bit more Gothic in tone. At the same time, the talented cast does an excellent job of portraying the nearly two dozen characters in the piece (six of eight cast members play multiple roles).

Frederica Nascimento’s scenic design proves to be flexible and fits right in with Angela Balogh Calin’s period costumes and Tony Valdes’s wig and make-up designs. Ken Booth’s lighting and Robert Oriol’s sound keep the setting from becoming overly minimalist. The huge number of Jane Eyre fans will adore the presentation – and even those who have never read the novel will find the play frequently gripping and always entertaining. (Elaine Mura)

The Nerd Daily has a bookish Q&A with writer Juliette Cross.

The one that made you want to become an author: Jane Eyre. Hands down. (Elise Dumpleton)

A columnist from The Washington Post looks into the silly #Romanticize trend on TikTok.

The other day, while waiting for a new grout cleaner to set for three to five minutes, I was mindlessly scrolling on my phone when I landed on a TikTok of a beautiful woman who was scrubbing her own tiles. But this woman, in full hair and makeup, was wearing a more ethereal sundress for the task than I have ever worn for any task in my entire existence, and that was the point of the video. [...]

This is also the point at which I started to realize how much #Romanticizing content has become backdoor “trad wife” content. Any time you have landed on a mother of young children telling you that life will feel more sparkly if you milk a goat while dressed like Laura Ingalls Wilder, you are three clicks from a #MAHA hashtag and five clicks from #MAGA.

Nobody ever jumps down the rabbit hole of a vintage dress Pinterest page and ends up watching TikTok edits of “Norma Rae” or reading Hannah Arendt. But there’s a decent chance that within 15 minutes, you’re going to be reading about how public schools harm children and how instead of vaccines, we can just eat bee pollen. It’s the Duggars meet Jane Eyre; it’s Anne of (Marjorie Taylor) Green Gables. (Monica Hesse)

This columnist from Far Out Magazine is no Emerald Fennell fan:

If there’s one thing we can trust Emerald Fennell to do, it’s to create awful movies that market themselves as being about weight social issues while saying absolutely nothing, hiding behind a glitzy exterior and distracting audiences behind pretty images. In the rise of Tumblr-esque cinema, in which filmmakers prioritise style over substance to appeal to a vapid culture that places appearances above everything else, we have slowly been inundated with a new wave of films that prefer to say nothing and focus on looking good, very much reflecting the ideology that dominates the internet and our ever-fading values.

With the commercial success of Saltburn, it seems as though Fennell is opting for this style of cinema and making it her trademark, something that she will carry into the making of Wuthering Heights. (Emily Ruuskanen)

AnneBrontë.org has a post on how the Brontës prepared their books for the press.