Mr Earnshaw’s social experiment

Ox in a Box reviews Inspector Sands' production of Wuthering Heights.

Inspector Sands‘ stunning and utterly bleak adaption is all about the abuse, power, coercion, control, hate, revenge, ignorance and cruelty that manifests itself at Wuthering Heights and subsequently at Thrushcross Grange.

Mr Earnshaw’s social experiment – bringing a boy home, found on his travels, and adopting him as his son – is as totally relatable today, as are the petty jealousies, cruelty and claustrophobia of their existence shut away on the Yorkshire Moors. After two years of living a similar existence we are well aware of the suspicions, paranoia and social and domestic tensions that can arise.

The focus instead is on whether it’s possible to create a monster – Heathcliff’s bent on utter annihilation and revenge is hard to watch. Throw in the dark gothic set, the cawing of crows and the howling winds, and our isolation is complete.

There is no comfort, no respite, no relenting, as generation after generation are brutally despoiled, ruined, conned, tricked and neglected, the only human respite provided by the loyal servant Nelly, played so brilliantly by Giulia Innocenti. 

It’s hard to watch but impossible to tear yourself away, whisking you through the intergenerational trauma as character after character falls by the way side, the audience at Oxford Playhouse clinging on tight on this roller-coaster ride of black emotion.

And yet there are light patches, mainly glimpsed through the constant dark humour, which takes you by surprise, as the tale winds itself to its self destructive end. [...]

In terms of bringing you a Wuthering Heights to remember, this is it, and an absolute #must see production that stays with you long after the curtains come down, provoking some really interesting post-production conversations.

Unforgettable in fact, but love? I think not.

Metro Philadelphia features the stage production of Jane Eyre which opens today.

With [Kathryn] MacMillian as its director, and [Charlotte] Northeast as Jane – among a special local chorus of “Janes” – their world premiere adaptation of ‘Jane Eyre’ with the Philadelphia Artists Collective takes place May 11 to 28 at Philadelphia’s Christ Church Neighborhood House.

These wunderkinds of theater, MacMillan and Northeast, each knew and loved the fusty Brontë’ classic, but wanted to give volume to the concept of forwarding the female voice, loudly.

“Women learned in 2020 what it meant to truly find our voice, are continually learning what our voice means, what impact it has, what damage it can do, what questions we bring and what answers we want: through the world of Jane Eyre, and our adaptation, is about exploring your voice now,” said Northeast. “Sometimes our “Jane” is aware of her power, sometimes not… putting that resonance across, and how we grow from it, is the heart of this new adaptation.”

As adaptor and director, MacMillan seconds that emotion, and stated that she wanted to push forward the notion that ‘Jane’ comes from a position of being “powerless, due to class, due to lack of money and connection.” So then, Eyre’s relationships to powerful institutions and education are about finding independence from the patriarchy as well as from institutional forces.

“It’s about learning to say ‘no,” offered MacMillian.

While this team of women theater artists tackled Jane Austen as lovingly and colorfully irreverent, their ‘Jane Eyre’ has other starker colors and darker tones in its crayon box to consider, “in a far more earnest way, through this sweeping, passionate story,” noted MacMillian. “There is a love story at the core of ‘Jane Eyre’, but there are so many important and wonderful stories before and after that relationship – such as female friendships, and how women influence each other and work together to find their voices and break free of the patriarchy.”

Four minds intertwined as one for ‘Jane Eyre’, Northeast related the writing and re-envisioning process of its new deconstruction to the “sweep” in catering jobs, each writer built on top of another’s with who Jane was, how Jane’s language worked and what new structure could be crafted from such speech.

“Kathryn and I came in as the editors from there with the finesses,” said Northeast of the sweep.

Along with giving breath to an entirely new world of staging for their ‘Jane Eyre’, MacMillian spoke to their adaptation’s fresh conjuring of a “chorus of Janes.”

“The physicalization of Jane’s internal struggle, the rending of her psyche from five different people in an exciting and palpable way,” how the director looked Eyre’s chorus of Janes.

“Look at all of the women in Jane’s life, how they question and better her, and break her down – it was Meghan’s idea to turn them into a ‘Jane chorus,'” noted Northeast. “Another Jane, an integral part of her world – five different Janes that come together when she needs them.”

And with that, an introverted novel of the 1840s such as Jane Eyre—one initially focused on the breadths of romance rather than one woman’s marvelous voice—is now exploded outwards toward maximal extroversion.

“What we’ve done is break ‘Jane Eyre’, the novel, out of its internal place and make it more thrilling, and theatrical, for audiences,” said Northeast.

“We’ve made an old-world novel into a three-dimensional adaptation,” said MacMillian, pointing out the heights of its semi-industrial Christ Church setting and its tech tools of projection and lighting schemes. “Physically and psychologically, we are adding imagery to Jane Eyre. Our Jane has many many levels to explore.” (A.D. Amorosi)

The Ringer ranks The Cure's 50 best songs and claims that,

Smith was deeply influenced by the Romantics: Dickinson, Brontë, Keats, all your faves. He created the “Robert Smith” persona to help him elevate normal human feelings to the level of grand drama, and here he examines a love so powerful that he will swim across oceans to be reunited with his beloved. You can never say he doesn’t commit. (Michael Tedder)

The Yorkshireman features The Black Bull in Haworth. Brussels Brontë Blog has a post on the latest developments concerning the future Gezusters Brontëplein/Place des Soeurs Brontë in Koekelberg.