Saturday Morning News

The Lavender Magazine reviews the Jane Eyre performances at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis:

The Guthrie’s Jane Eyre, adapted by Alan Stanford, is one of those shows people love or dismiss. I count myself as a lover. John Miller-Stephany’s stark and spare staging, brisk as a wind on the moors, emphasizes the cruelty exacted on Charlotte Bronte’s heroine by those above her, with a sharp eye to class and Christian hypocrisy.

Stacia Rice as Jane finds the perfect amount of dignified reserve at odds with romantic yearning. Her plight is evocatively framed within the spectral grandeur of Patrick Clark’s set design.

Rice is matched passionately with Sean Haberle’s rugged, sexy, and secretive Rochester. Charity Jones chills as domineering Mrs. Reed. Peter Hansen is properly Calvinistic as St. John Rivers. And all actresses playing orphans are well-spoken and heartwrenching. A compelling package all the way around. (John Townsend)

Libelle gives you the chance to win the Dutch DVD of Jane Eyre 2006 that we presented some weeks ago. Check it out, the deadline is October 18.

On the blogosphere today: A visit to Haworth moors on I Am Genevieve and Cornflower reminding us of an interesting book by Rachel Ferguson:

The Brontës Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson has an introduction by A.S. Byatt in which she says the book affected her whole writing life - no small claim. A novel about the imagination and the creative power of creative thought (c.f. Miss Hargreaves ) it has "an astringent quirky humour". I'm intrigued

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre