Anne Brontë’s boldness and playfulness

Aussie Theatre features the forthcoming stage production of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall at the Roslyn Packer Theatre from 21 June to 16 July.

Emerging Australian playwright Emme Hoy will make her mainstage debut at Sydney Theatre Company next month with her whip-smart, contemporary adaptation of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – on at the Roslyn Packer Theatre from June 21.

Directed by STC’s Resident Director Jessica Arthur (Grand Horizons, Wonnangatta), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall follows the story of Helen Graham and her mysterious arrival in the town of Lindenhope. She has a young son in tow but no husband in sight – a concept which so shocked English society in 1848 that Brontë’s sister (Jane Eyre’s Charlotte Brontë) sought to prevent the book’s republication.

Arthur has assembled a stellar cast to bring this charming, passionate period drama to life, including Tuuli Narkle (Black is the New White tour), Remy Hii (The Golden Age, Crazy Rich Asians), Danielle Catanzariti (Pinnochio), Tara Morice (A Cheery Soul), Ben O’Toole (The Harp in the South), Steve Rodgers (Power Plays), Eliza Scott in their STC debut, Anthony Taufa (Home, I’m Darling) and Nikita Waldron (Rules For Living).

Arthur said 'the production would appeal to literature and theatre lovers alike, and continue society’s love affair with period dramas following the success of shows like Bridgerton and The Gilded Age.

Not only do we crave escapism as a society, there’s also something really fun about breaking down the rules of performativity, especially when it comes to identity.

In this play, we are presented with a set of rules and manners about how to behave, and then we break them apart – just like Anne presented the expectations of the time and then very openly tore them to shreds in her work. Hoy’s adaptation of the story perfectly encapsulates this, it’s a great combination of that push and pull – the classic and contemporary' (...)

Hoy: 'I read Anne Brontë at university and remember being completely floored by the contrast between her writing and that of her sisters.

In adapting her work I wanted to stay true to Brontë’s boldness and playfulness – as well as her rebellious, political take on the tropes of her sisters’ genre. so I decided to use a flashback structure with direct address to the audience to reference the epistolary form of the novel, and the intimacy she creates between the reader and the characters'.

Hoy, who also wrote new scenes for STC’s 2018 production of Saint Joan, said she hope audiences would delight in the “beauty and scope of a period drama onstage.

The characters are strikingly modern, and deal with issues that are sadly still so relevant, At its core this is a story of hope, which cannot be more necessary in 2022.

Wigan Today reviews the paperback edition of Michael Stewart's Walking the Invisible.

Stewart has travelled all over the north of England in search of their lives and landscapes and now he invites readers to enter into the world as the Brontës would have seen it by following the sisters’ footsteps across meadow and moor, and through village and town.

From Liverpool to Scarborough, and taking in wild, windy – and often unforgiving – scenery, Stewart investigates the geographical and social features that shaped the Brontës’ work and discovered echoes of the siblings’ novels on his series of inspirational walks.

And with the help of an unlikely cast of Yorkshire’s inhabitants, the author has found himself falling further into their lives and writings than he could ever have imagined.

Vivid and evocative, and including a series of beautiful maps of walks, including Dentdale, Law Hill and North Lees Hall in Hathersage, which Stewart devised when creating the iconic Brontë Stones project, Walking the Invisible invites you to experience the Brontës as they have never before been experienced.

Along the way, you will find yourself getting closer to classics such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Agnes Grey, discovering the real locations behind their fictional settings, and uncovering the myths that surround this much acclaimed and wholly unique family.

As much a literary guide as a walk through the lives of the Brontës, and a fascinating exploration of the changes that were wrought on this part of West Yorkshire during the Victorian period, Walking the Invisible is an essential companion on any visit to the beautiful countryside around Haworth. (Pam Norfolk)