Fierce but controlled emotion

The Breeze reviews the performances of Jane Eyre at the JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The cast of Jane Eyre illuminated the stage with fierce but controlled emotion, perfectly suited to Polly Teale’s script. (...)
The adaptation is full of both traditional and unconventional characteristics, exhibited in the simple, Victorian set as well as in the somewhat unorthodox musical underscoring. Cellist Grisha Kramer appeared onstage with the actors during several scenes of the play.
The cast of JMU’s production was visibly strong, with five out of eight cast members playing two or more roles with ease. Notable was junior Julie Schroll’s bubbly French novice Adele. Junior Lash Dooley’s composed transition from a clergyman to a household pet, spurred the crowd to laugher as Rochester’s dog, Pilot.
Sophomore Ali Hoxie proved capable in the challenging role of Bertha, which required animated body language over dialogue. She remained engaging and dynamic despite her limited opportunities for verbal expression throughout the play.
Senior Lauren Meyer played the title role of Jane Eyre, and did her best to convey the complexities that Teale strove to demonstrate to the audience through her script. Senior Joel Adam Gerlach’s Rochester straddled a fine line between jovial and deeply troubled, a combination that was unsettling at times.
Straying from the original Brontë novel, Teal [sic] explores a complex connection between Bertha and Jane Eyre. Bertha plays the character that Jane cannot be: assertive, decisive and vengeful. Her role is so beautifully incorporated that you are never sure if she’s a real character, or just figment of Jane’s imagination.
Overall, the small, seemingly tight-knit cast pulled together to expose an interesting and thought-provoking adaptation of a popular novel that is often taken at facevalue. Polly Teale’s “Jane Eyre” is an example of the underlying stories that can unravel from the texts we think we know best, if we’d only dig a little deeper. (Lindsay Casale and Aaron Stewart)

Terry Heath after the insightful series of posts devoted to the Female Gothic in Wuthering Heights now talks about the portrayal of women in late 18th and 19th century novels. The chosen examples of course are Jane and Catherine:

During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women increasingly contributed to the development of the novel. Individual novelists uniquely define the power and potential of the female, but how does female sexuality differ in each text? Has society’s expectations shifted or changed? If so, how does this effect the heroine? (Read more)

El Blog de Artemisa Ediciones informs of an upcoming new Spanish edition of Wuthering Heights with the illustrations of Balthus:

Traducción de Roberto Bartual / La edición incluye 27 dibujos de Balthus.

En el mundo oscuro de la infancia de los protagonistas de la obra de Emily Brontë, sobre la que Balthus hizo una amplia serie de dibujos en 1933, está el origen de una gran parte de la obra madura del artista. Algunos de estos dibujos fueron publicados en 1935 en Minotaure, la revista de los surrealistas, a quienes fascinaba la obra de Balthus.

EDIT:
The book appears next December 2007. Source.

And...

The Battle Creek Enquirer publishes the cast of the recent performances of Jane Eyre: The Musical in the Adrian College, Michigan. BookClubClassics reviews the recent performances of Jane Eyre at the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis. Lo Scaffale talks about Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë in Italian.

Categories: Books, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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An evening with Balthus, Cathy and Heathcliff

Several Brontë alerts for today, April 15:

1. In London, as we reported before, at the Victoria and Albert Museum the exhibition Blood on Paper: The art of the book (15 April-29 June) opens:

At a time when the notion of the book is challenged by the advent of the screen and computer, this exhibition aims to show the extraordinary ways in which the book has been treated by leading artists of today and the recent past. Blood on Paper will focus on new and contemporary work, and on books where the artist has been the driving force in conception and design. The past twenty years have seen outstanding work by some of the most influential and respected artists of our time. (...)
Seen together, these artists’ books show a truly astonishing inventiveness, many on display to the public for the first time. Artists represented range from Matisse, Picasso and Braque to Anselm Kiefer, Anish Kapoor and Georg Baselitz. Almost all notable artists of the 20th and 21st centuries have produced books, or works that refer to books: those represented will also include Balthus, Louise Bourgeois, Daniel Buren, Anthony Caro, Eduardo Chillida, Francesco Clemente, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Sol Lewitt, Richard Long , Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg and many others whose names are synonymous with art today.

The Brontë connection comes through Balthus and his illustrations for Wuthering Heights that have been featured previously on BrontëBlog and have recently been published in a Spanish edition of Emily Brontë's book by Artemisa.

Picture source.

Balthus (1908 - 2001)
'Wuthering Heights' By Emily Brontë
1993
Published by the Limited Editions Club, New York
National Art Library, V&A, pressmark: 805.AH.0011
Acquired with the help of the Friends of the National Libraries
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS,

2. A new chance to see Patricia Hruby Powell one-woman-show “An Evening with Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson.” (More information on these previous posts):

An Evening with Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson
7 p.m. Tuesday
Wright State University-Lake Campus Auditorium, 7600 Lake Campus Drive, Celina

Presented by the College Community Arts Council and funded by the Ohio Arts Council, Powell’s performance comes as part of a week-long residency, said CCAC president Sue Pittman.“We were trying to marry a couple things,” she said. “We wanted to offer an in-school residency, and we also wanted to offer a performance to our junior scholars, who are high school age. We also wanted to work with the community.”Pittman said the perfect combination came in Powell and her program. During the April 15 performance, Powell will portray each writer in their chronological order and at different parts in her life. The performance will also include reading from that writer’s body of work.
Austen, Bronte and Dickinson make interesting subjects, Pittman said, for their eccentricities as well as their roles in women’s literature.“It’s important to make people aware of these three authors,” Pittman said. “These were three authors who were really trying to get their work out when men dominated the field. They broke conventions by writing serious work and used pseudonyms to get their work out. Each is read continuously since their publication, and they’re considered some of the greatest authors of all time.” (Kate Lohnes in The Lima News)

3. A book discussion in Rome, New York:

Romance and tragedy come to the Connect With The Classics Book Discussion at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 15. The group, open to the public, discusses "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte at Jervis Public Library, 613 N. Washingtom St.
No registration is required, and refreshments will be served.

Copies of the book, in many various formats, are available at the library.
Emily Bronte’s only novel appeared to mixed reviews in 1847, a year before her death at 30. In the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, and in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors of its setting, Wuthering Heights "creates a world of its own, conceived with a disregard for convention, an instinct for poetry and for the dark depths of human psychology that make it one of the greatest novels of passion ever written," said Librarian Lorie J. O’Donnell, MLS.
The movie, starring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes as the tragic Cathy and Heathcliff, and based on the book, will be shown on Monday, April 21 at 6 p.m. No registration is required and popcorn and drinks will be served. (Rome Sentinel)

Categories: Alert, Art-Exhibitions, Illustrations, Talks, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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Scarborough, Todmorden, Dublin...

The Times has an article about Scarborough's (property) renaissance. And Anne Brontë's love for the place is not forgotten:

Can you name Britain's first seaside resort? Congratulations to those who said Scarborough. Established as a spa town in the 1620s with the discovery of a mineral spring, the resort took its next step a few decades later when a local physician, Dr Wittie, recommended the benefits of a bracing dip in the sea. By the 19th century, Scarborough was the queen of British resorts, rivalled only by Brighton. Victorians flocked to its imposing spa complex (still there) and fine beaches, while three million came each year into the 1950s. The rise of foreign travel in the 1960s, however, hit Scarborough in the same way it did other UK seaside destinations.
The town's renaissance is driven not only by a renewed appreciation of the British seaside but also by new money from northern financial centres such as Leeds, along with an influx of creative types. Its appeal is clear enough. Wide, sandy beaches curve around the town's two bays - the smarter South Bay, with its backdrop of shops, restaurants and hotels, and the North Bay's more bucket-and-spade appeal. A headland divides the two, topped by a 12th-century castle that overlooks a tiny harbour.
Scarborough has culture, too. Not many seaside towns have four theatres, including the acclaimed Stephen Joseph Theatre, where Alan Ayckbourn has premiered most of his 60-odd plays. You can add a well-regarded jazz festival and Britain's last seaside orchestra. Anne Brontë loved the town and used it in Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I look down on the bay from the balcony of the Crown Hotel, whose Victorian elegance is typical of the town's finest buildings. The nearby Grand Hotel is being restored, while Scarborough has its first boutique hotel: Beiderbecke's. (Norman Miller)

With some delay we report the January meeting of the Todmorden Ladies’ Probus Club where Ian Emberson made a talk. From Todmorden News:

The continuing search for unpublished material surrounding the world-famous Brontë family could throw up some welcome "finds" in the Todmorden area, a local expert believes.
Speaking at the January meeting of the Todmorden Ladies’ Probus Club, Ian Emberson, said that the Brontë sisters had some considerable links with the area.
Their mother’s uncle, the Rev John Fennell, was vicar of Cross Stone during their young lives and Charlotte’s husband, the Rev Arthur Bell Nicholls, was a friend of the Rev Sutcliffe Sowden, who was Mr Fennell’s curate before becoming vicar of Hebden Bridge.
Mr Emberson, a retired music librarian, said it was highly probable that the literary sisters had made a number of visits to the Cross Stone vicarage and that the descendants of people living in the parish at the time could reveal some interesting information that had never before been published.
Mr Emberson and his wife, Catherine, have published “Recollections of the Brontës” by George Sowden, who succeeded his brother, Sutcliffe, at Hebden Bridge. His article had remained virtually forgotten for more than 100 years. They came across the material by chance while researching for an article on Mr Fennell (Brontë Studies 2005).
At the Probus meeting, Mr Emberson, a member of both the Gaskell and Brontë Societies, was assisted his by wife, and together they presented a carefully-crafted talk about Todmorden’s Brontë links, interspersed with readings from letters and other material penned by the Brontës or their friends and acquaintances.
It proved the perfect combination, with Mr Emberson explaining the Brontë story and his wife reading the passages that so brilliantly illustrated the theme.
Mr Fennell was vicar of Cross Stone from 1819 until his death in 1841 at the age of 67. An eloquent tribute by Mr Fennell to his first wife, Jane (Mrs Maria Brontë’s aunt), inscribed on her gravestone at Cross Stone, and Charlotte’s letter to her father while staying with Mr Fennell with Emily, Anne and Branwell were included in the presentation.
Mr and Mr Emberson were thanked on behalf of the Probus Club by Mrs Liz Gore.

A week ago, Mr Emberson gave another talk in Mytholmroyd:

Mytholmroyd Methodist Church, Historical Society 7.30pm, speaker Ian Emberson on The Brontes. (Halifax Evening Courier, February 8)

On The Loy we can read more comments about The Heights, the contemporary setting of Wuthering Heights performed in Dublin by The Playgroup Company:

"I like to call is "making up" rather than devising," says director, Tom Creed, of his latest show, The Heights, a brand new stage version of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Or almost a version of Bronte's novel, because according to Creed, the play is as much a homage to movie version of the book, and even Kate Bush's hit single version of the story.
"I think a lot of people feel they know the story of Wuthering Heights, but they haven't actually read the book. Kate Bush, for instance, hadn't read the book when she wrote the song…and the idea for the play came from thinking about the Merle Oberon / Lawrence Olivier film version."
All the same, Creed and company did get the book off the shelf too, although leafing through it has not exactly produced a facsimile version. For a start, The Heights is set in a city…
"The characters in the book have the moors running through their veins. And for a 19th century audience, the moors will have represented something cool and romantic, the sort of place where you could go and just get lost. Today, it is the city that has that quality for me, this place where you can go and disappear..."
And then there is the little business of period. The Heights is set in the 1980s…
"The story is told by the decedents of Heathcliff and Cathy, who we imagine to be living today, so then we imagine that the love story happened more than twenty years ago, which leave us…in the 1980s." (Luke Clancy)

The National Post talks about zombies in films. Our very own Brontë zombie movie (Jacques Tourneur's 1943 I Walked with a Zombie) is mentioned:

The next significant zombie film was refined at its roots; I Walked with a Zombie, a 1943 collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton, is a loose retelling of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. The story of a Canadian nurse who travels to the Caribbean to cure a woman suffering from a strange ailment is free of the genre's more blunt elements, relying on mood and atmosphere to create suspense. (Joel McConvey)

And...
The Pace Press discusses Jasper Ffforde's seminal novel 'The Eyre Affair'. The Tuscaloosa News reviews the performances of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep at the University of Alabama that we mentioned some days ago. Jane Eyre is analyzed in LeerGratis.com (in Spanish). Also in Spanish, La tormenta en un vaso reviews the recently edited Artemisa edition of Wuthering Heights in Spanish with Balthus's illustrations:

En suma: una cuidada edición, una novela inolvidable y el lujo de contemplar los dibujos de Balthus. Todo un placer. (Banda aparte)

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Talks, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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Dressing Like Jane Eyre

Jane Shilling describes in The Times what she thinks is 'to dress like Jane Eyre':

I encountered the extreme version of this handy rule in Moscow, at a book fair in the preperestroika 1980s, which I attended dressed like Jane Eyre, all scrubbed face and orphan’s homespun, on the ground that communist women would despise such capitalist frivolities as dress. Only to find myself blinded by the lavishly sequined daywear and dazzling jewels of the Cuban, Ukrainian and Azerbaijani delegates.

The Portuguese Jornal de Notícias presents the new book by Agustina Bessa-Luís and Graça Morais: As Metamorfoses. It seems that the book contains some references to Emily Brontë:

Nas 115 páginas, há também incursões pela obra de Ovídio e evocações frequentes a Musil, Maeterlinck, Emily Brontë e Flaubert, afinal, a própria genealogia literária da escritora que celebrou há pouco mais de um mês o 85.º aniversário. (Agostinho Santos and Sérgio Almeida)

La Opinión de Tenerife has an article about Artemisa Ediciones that mentions their recent new Spanish translation of Wuthering Heights with the Balthus illustrations. Corinna Henrich in Kritische Ausgabe selects Jane Eyre in her top ten 2007 readings.

This Just in... News From the Agony Column reviews The Complete Book of Aunts by Rupert Christiansen with Beth Brophy that we presented some time ago. Textual Frigate continues its series of posts about Wuthering Heights. When the Enchantress Whispers to the Beasts posts about how different artists have portrayed Jane Eyre. Regrettably the author confuses George Richmond's 1850 drawing of Charlotte Brontë with Jane Eyre herself and Evert A. Duyckinick's 1873 idealized portrait of Charlotte with the real Charlotte. Zona de noticias discovers a new Brontëite, Peruvian Poet Carmen Ollé.
EDIT:
Zona de noticias points out that the origin of the quoted information is an article in the Caretas magazine.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

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Heroines and the woman question

First of all, we must sadly report that Ruth Wilson lost her ceremony-less Golden Globe award to Queen Latifah (Life Support).

But life in Brontëland goes on. The Washington Post reviews A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry, which is customarily set in Victorian England. According to the reviewer,

Out of this narrative, a question arises: What about those "gentle" women who couldn't or wouldn't get married in the Victorian Age? They were usually doomed either to become governesses (like Jane Eyre) or hang around the houses of their father or brothers, subsisting on a penurious allowance. Both Melisande and Olivia had such an arrangement, living off their brothers, constituting a considerable financial burden. Melisande is evidently willing to marry again, but it's probable that Olivia didn't want to be bothered and lost her life because of it. (Carolyn See)

That is indeed the woman question: a highly debated, though hardly practically approached, matter in 19th century England and one that the Brontës examined at length.

The Chicago Sun-Times reviews another book, The Heroines. A Novel by Eileen Favorite. As the title says, it is a novel but that doesn't stop the author from including heroines from other works of fiction.

In The Heroines, 13-year-old Penny is a feisty, impatient young girl who not only reads the novels that she and her mother, Anne-Marie, keep in the attic of their rangy bed-and-breakfast in the Illinois countryside; she finds herself in a series of uncomfortably close encounters with the lead characters, who regularly, inexplicably appear in the flesh.
From Rapunzel to J.D. Salinger's Franny, the Heroines tend to arrive just after they've suffered romantic disappointments or other setbacks before disappearing back into their stories. Emma Bovary drops by, bemoaning her fate after being dumped by Rodolphe. A wild-eyed Scarlett O'Hara sashays in, as does Catherine from Wuthering Heights. (Anne-Marie is careful not to reveal anything to the Heroines that might alter their fictional fates -- a lesson that Penny learns through trial and error.) [...]
And as a metafiction, The Heroines allows Favorite to spoof the conventions of fairy tales and 19th century women's literature; the prairie around Anne-Marie's house shares distinct characteristics with the moor in Wuthering Heights, while the nearby forest, where Penny first encounters Conor, feels soaked in the mystery and enchantment of the Brothers Grimm. (Kevin Nance)

Jon Robin Baitz has written an article (or several) for The Huffington Post. He likens his prospects to Heathcliff's:

As for me, I'll make more TV, probably not at an old school monolithic network and probably not for a while. But I will make more TV; bet on it. I will make more TV the way Heathcliff came back to Wuthering Heights (without the bad end I hope).

Jane Eyre is still the star of the blogosphere, no doubt about it. Allan Hunter, Berliner Lesezeichen (in German), Ramblings of a romance writing mama all share their views on the novel. While Destination: Sanctification writes about Jane Eyre 2006 ('Outstanding Production!'). Rapport från en luttrad bibliotekarie writes - in Swedish - about Jane Eyre 2006 as well but also lists some Jane Eyre-related books. Jane Eyre 2006 pushed Fabellina to think about 'Eroticism and Classic Literature Adaptations'. And A Fort Made of Books writes about all things Jane Eyre: Jasper Fforde, Charlotte Brontë, film adaptations... Books, Movies, Crafts and More has made a profile of the author of Jane Eyre.

A couple of blogs talk about Wuthering Heights as well: Ramblings of a Librarian Assistant and La Lengua reviews - in Spanish - Artemisa's edition of Cumbres Borrascosas with its Balthus illustrations.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

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