Follow that

Nick Lane, who has adapted Jane Eyre for Blackeyed Theatre posts on Broadway World:

For me, it's always the same: I'm asked to adapt a novel, I get all excited, have all these ideas... Then I read the source material and think, "Wow. Follow that."
So it was here. Jane Eyre was the first time I'd been asked to adapt a novel by a female writer. I was honoured... and nervous. I knew the book; I'd read it when I was younger, purely for pleasure.
Coming to it as a playwright was entirely different, I'd say - you're looking for ways to weave a satisfying theatrical structure as seamlessly as possible into a beautiful, revered text without losing the quality of the character work or the richness of the world created within its pages.
Throughout the novel Jane conquers hardships and heartbreaks with wit, grace, strength and an indomitable spirit. Her self-determining nature, which continues to inspire, must have been close to revolutionary at the time.
This is why the book retains its importance, I think. Here's a character who society believes to be inferior from the moment she draws breath by dint of her gender. And yet, through all she has to endure, she stands constantly in front of the world and says, "All of my choices will be mine alone". Is there anyone who wouldn't be inspired by that?
No one who knows the novel needs me to tell them what a genius Charlotte Brontë was. The way she captures the ache of love - not just the pure power of first love, as it is with Jane, but the desperate inner chaos of Rochester's heart as he wrestles with his own feelings and his dark secret past - is unsurpassable. Add to that social commentary, wit, a wealth of sympathetic and detestable characters, an almost Gothic sense of unease...
Follow that, indeed. (Read more)

The New Yorker visits London's South Bank camp of the Extinction Rebellion campaign:

A young couple slept, entwined, next to a copy of “Jane Eyre” open in the grass. A box of food donations contained tangerines, oat cakes, and raspberries. (Sam Knight)

Venezuela Unida (in Spanish) and vengeance in politics and life:

O en el oscuro, angurriento, destructivo Heathcliff, criatura urdida por la imaginación de Emily Brontë; esclavo de la úlcera que se reabre una y otra vez para su desgracia y la de quienes lo rodean. (Translation)

Both Jane Eyre (41th) and Wuthering Heights (68th) are on New Zealand's Whitcoulls Top 100 books list, as reported by Newshub. A local couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with a trip to England in the Aniston Star. AnneBrontë.org celebrates the 50h anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.