'I suppose it’s a feminist take, but it’s led by Brontë'

Playbill tells the story of 'How Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre Was Brought to Life for the Ballet Stage'.

Cathy Marston’s first memory of Jane Eyre is from when she was eight years old. The child of two English teachers, books were a staple in her home. The final image of the BBC’s 1983 Jane Eyre has always stuck with her. “Timothy Dalton was Rochester, and he was standing, blind, under a big tree,” she says. “I’ve had absolute fondness for the story ever since.” [...]
When creating her Jane Eyre, Marston’s prime inspiration came from Charlotte Brontë’s words; she carried her dog-eared copy of the novel with her to every rehearsal. Marston would come into the studio with a list of words for each character, such as “wildcat” for the young Jane, and use them to create individualistic movement vocabularies. Returning to the book also helped Marston through periods of frustration. “The joy of working with a classic text like this is that you can go back to it, and it gives you the answers,” she says. “Sometimes you just need to find a movement, you’re running dry, and you can just open the book.” For Marston, it’s never about being literal, but about the emotions and descriptions that spark her imagination; a true example of Regietheater.
When American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Devon Teuscher learned that she was cast in the ballet’s titular role, she took a cue from Marston: the first thing that she did was read Brontë’s novel. “I dove into who Jane is as a person, her habits, traits, persona and being; I’m trying to embody that, and find moments from the book that I can relate to the movement,” she says. The more Teuscher got to know the character of Jane, the more she developed a sense of kinship with her. “Jane is very morally centered,” says Teuscher. “She has a sense of what is right and wrong and she doesn’t steer from that, though she is often tempted to. I relate to that because, like Jane, I generally try to do the right thing, sometimes to the detriment of my own well-being.”
Jane Eyre is famously one of the first novels written in the first person; this gave Marston additional freedom in structuring the story for the stage. “Jane sees things really intensely,” she says. “It gave me the ability to tell things not as they are, but as they seem to her; they can be more extreme, or dream-like, or shadowy or bright. It’s quite different than describing things in a naturalistic way.” One of the ways that she demonstrates this is by starting the ballet in medias res and telling the story in flashback, an idea she took from Cary Fukanaga’s 2011 film adaptation. “The book is told in hindsight, because it’s Jane telling the story about herself. So, it made sense to have an older Jane remembering her younger self, rather than telling it in present tense,” she says. [...]
Though Marston didn’t create Jane Eyre with American Ballet Theatre in mind, the ballet is a perfect fit for the ABT Women’s Movement, the umbrella under which it is being presented this season. “What’s most exciting is that we’re taking on this story that has the ballerina as the heroine,” says Teuscher. “It’s really rare in ballet for a female character to tell her own story and be the moving force, not just the product of someone else’s decisions.” Marston’s Jane holds fast to her agency until the curtain falls. Rather than end the ballet with Jane and Rochester locked in an embrace, Marston has her protagonist walk downstage, framed in a spotlight like a Victorian portrait. This is Marston’s ode to Brontë’s famous concluding line: “Reader, I married him.” That line breaks the fourth wall of the novel, reminding the reader that Jane truly is in control of her story. When Marston presented her ending to Northern Ballet’s artistic staff in 2016, they were nervous that it wouldn’t be well received, but she held her ground. “I suppose it’s a feminist take,” says Marston, “but it’s led by Brontë. I don’t know that there would have been an alternative for me.” (Chava Pearl Lansky)

The same writer presents the show on Pointe.

Russh discusses reclusive artists.

The examples of posthumous recognition for notoriously reclusive artists are endless, from van Gogh to Thoreau to Emily Brontë who never lived to see her real name printed beneath the title of her first and only novel, Wuthering Heights. (Anna Harrison)

And that was how she wanted it.

Le nouveau cénacle (France) compares Agatha Christie's childhood to the Brontës'.

Comme les soeurs Brontë, Agatha Christie était une enfant à l’imagination débordante. C’est peut-être un trait caractéristique propre aux Anglais, peuple qui aime les légendes et nourrir son imaginaire de récits fantastiques. (Julien Leclercq) (Translation)

The Hindu on framing stories:

Framing also provides context within which a story unfolds — Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness could only be narrated by Charles Marlowe on a liner to an unnamed passenger. It helps distance the reader from the action — an account retold is rendered more believable than if we were to follow the ivory trader Kurtz’s actions directly. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein also offer us the structure of a story within a story, moving from one perspective to another. (Janice Pariat)

Mitú interviews YA Novelist Michelle Ruiz Keil.

I also love governess stories—so many of my early literary heroines came of age working as teachers or caretakers-Anne Shirley, Jo March, Sara Crewe, Jane Eyre. The nanny/governess aspect of All of Us with Wings comes out of that. (Virginia Isaad)

Book Riot recommends '50+ YA Paperbacks For Summer 2019 Reading', including

Wrong in All the Right Ways by Tiffany Brownlee
Emma’s life has always gone according to her very careful plans. But things take a turn toward the unexpected when she falls in love for the first time with the one person in the world who’s off-limits: her new foster brother, the gorgeous and tormented Dylan McAndrews.
Meanwhile, Emma’s AP English class is reading Wuthering Heights, and she’s been assigned to echo Emily Brontë’s style in an epistolary format. With irrepressible feelings and no one to confide in, she’s got a lot to write about. Distraught by the escalating intensity of their mutual attraction, Emma and Dylan try to constrain their romance to the page―for fear of threatening Dylan’s chances at being adopted into a loving home. But the strength of first love is all-consuming, and they soon get enveloped in a passionate, secretive relationship with a very uncertain outcome. (Kelly Jensen)

Aline Brosh Mckenna and Ramon Pérez's Jane will be released in Italian in August as reported by Manga Forever (Italy).

Jane di Aline Brosh Mckenna e Ramon Pérez 224 pagine – 17 x 24 cm colore, cartonato  € 21,00
Cosa succede quando la premiatissima sceneggiatrice de Il diavolo veste Prada decide di ambientare l’immortale trama di Jane Eyre di Charlotte Brontë nella New York dei giorni nostri? Se la storia diventa un romanzo grafico illustrato da uno dei più amati disegnatori del Nordamerica, il risultato sarà assolutamente strepitoso. Un piccolo gioiello amatissimo dalla critica americana, che ora arriva in Italia in una preziosa edizione cartonata. Un libro per far conoscere e riscoprire un classico immortale della letteratura inglese del diciannovesimo secolo, che diviene un romanzo di formazione attualissimo e moderno! (Manuel Lucaroni) (Translation)

Onirik (France) reviews the French edition of The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts by Annie Darling.

Il faut dire qu’elle a mis la barre très haut, ou alors ses critères sont bizarres. Son idéal masculin est en effet le ténébreux Heathcliff, le sombre héros imaginé par Emily Brontë. Chaque chapitre commence d’ailleurs par une citation du roman Les Hauts de Hurlevent. De ce fait chacune de ses rencontres est une déception. Jusqu’à ce que... (Claire) (Translation)

El asombrario (Spain) features photographer Berenice Abbott.

Berenice Abbott se crio en un ambiente muy humilde, sola con su madre, a la que su marido expulsó de casa por una infidelidad. Ese ambiente de resistencia en Ohio, a solas con su madre, y uno de los primeros libros que leyó, Jane Eyre, la novela de Charlotte Brontë que es toda una declaración contra la estructura patriarcal para educar mujeres pacientes y abnegadas, le hizo desde el principio una mujer valiente, trabajadora, peleona, que tenía claro lo que quería: sobre todo, no depender de nadie. Concluye al final del documental: “Soy el siglo XX. Nací en 1898, y quiero llegar a los 102 años para vivir el siglo completo”. (Rafa Ruiz) (Translation)

On The Sisters' Room, Maddalena De Leo looks at some of the Haworth local folk tales. Unapologetic Writer posts about Wuthering Heights.