'Much like Jane Eyre herself; unassuming, generous, modest, and kind'

State of the Art fives four stars to Genesian Theatre Company's production of Jane Eyre.

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, adapted by director Ali Bendall, was fitting for the theatrical church’s final swansong as it embarks on its next chapter; characteristically Genesian in style but keen to leave its unique mark near the dawn of a new chapter for the theatre company in Rozelle. This play has much to recommend it.

The opening begins with Jane Eyre’s (Kyra Belford-Thomas) childhood shifting from one miserable circumstance to another, from a dreadful aunt to what can aptly be described as an institutionalised orphanage in all but name. Yet in the darkness which pervades these places, there is a glimmer of goodness be found, in her nursemaid Bessie (Karys Kennedy) and friend Helen (Laura Edwards). While Jane is separated from both by sometimes tragic circumstance, she learns enduring lessons of compassion, self-reliance, and generosity that guide her through the tumult to come.

Into adulthood, Jane gains employment at Thornfield Hall from the aloof owner Edward Rochester (Vincent Andriano) as a governess for his French ‘ward’ Adele (Julia Grace). Joined by the delightful housekeeper Mrs Fairfax (Jenny Jacobs), comparatively Thornfield seems like heaven to Jane. However, not everything is as it seems; after falling in love with the brooding Edward Rochester, Jane will discover that Thornfield and its owner share an immense secret; one that threatens everything.

Director/Writer Ali Bendell wanted to create a faithful adaption with a ‘fresh, contemporary twist’ that resonated with a modern audience. The play was largely successful in doing so, showing admirable restraint in holding space for Brontë to speak through this adaptation. The choice for Jane to break the fourth wall was clever and faithful to the book’s first-person narrative style. There was modern music sequence which, compared to the Victorian dialogue and costumes up until that point, felt unexpected and awkward; while the music successfully matched the scene’s ‘vibes’, it did not marry up well with its surrounding context. That being said, the writing was superb; mustering tasteful humour from a Gothic novel is no small feat.

Of all the sets I’ve seen at the Genesian, this was my favourite. The set, designed by Tom Fahy, was beautifully pared back, letting the Genesian’s historic Victorian church do the work with its gritty brickwork and mesmerising stained glass. The set also established physical levels that, in very Gothic fashion, matched the drama unfolding in every scene. Similarly, the sound design by Cian Byrne and Ali Bendall worked well in tandem to deliver that all-important Gothic atmosphere. Another element worth mentioning is the costumes, always a highlight at the Genesian, co-designed by Susan Carveth and Ali Bendall, which really evoked that modest and constrained Victoriana.

This was a really delightful cast; you could see that behind all that Gothic seriousness this was a fun play for them. Belford-Thomas brought a wonderful unassuming Jane-ness to the role; it isn’t an inherently easy role where Jane is understated and yet must also muster main character energy. Andriano meanwhile brought that brooding intensity to his character, which similarly presents difficulties, namely needing to slowly shift from cynic to romantic while still believably remaining the same character. Other honourable mentions go to Jenny Jacobs who brought an extraordinary presence on stage and Julia Grace who really captured the delightful utterly frivolity of her character which contrasted so well with the heavy Gothic atmosphere.

One cannot escape the conclusion that the Genesian is much like Jane Eyre herself; unassuming, generous, modest, and kind. Dear reader, apologies for exposing my sappy sentimentalism; rest assured though, it is thoroughly deserved. Much praise is owed to this production including to its director, creative team, and cast; it is well worth a watch. (Matt Lighton)

Honi Soit reviews it as well.

Brontë’s gothic drama not only matched the theatre space but was rewarded by the fact that set designers Ali Bendall and Tom Fahy made full use of the Genesian Theatre. The stained glass windows on the back wall became part of the set and were not covered up. Coupled with trap doors and creaking staircases, the atmosphere felt spiritual when the church bells rang within the play, as did the red lighting and suspenseful sound design by Michael Schell and Cian Byrne.

From the early scenes, we are immediately exposed to Jane’s difficult childhood as she lives as a “dependent” with Aunt Reed (Roslyn Hicks) and her family, who mistreat and bully her. When she is sent to be educated at Lowood School, she becomes one of many victims of a warped interpretation of Christianity where to “punish her body, [is] to save her soul”. 

The episodic structure of the first act was a necessity considering the length of the novel, however it was disappointing to see Jane Eyre (Kyra Belford-Thomas) only on stage with early confidantes like Bessie (Karys Kennedy) and Helen (Laura Edwards) for a couple scenes. Quiet scenes like Bessie letting Jane out of the ‘red room’ early, or Helen sharing her book, were rare moments of bliss for a character in such rigid domestic and school settings. Jane being forced away from everything she knows so often is an apt microcosm for how women experienced social mobility in the 19th-century. 

While filled with suspense, the second act was rushed in an attempt to get to the final resolution. When Jane returns to visit Aunt Reed on her deathbed, there is noticeably less closure and emotion than the book where it is a crucial turning point for Jane’s character development. She is able to forgive her for her abusive childhood but also stands up for herself and speaks her mind without any restraint. 

The second act may have additionally benefited from cutting the St. John plotline as it held up Jane’s return to Thornfield Hall, and was not translated in all its complexity in its short stagetime.

Despite being a plot twist in the book, the depiction of “madwoman” Bertha Mason (Rhiannon Jean) should have been further questioned given that Jane Eyre is being adapted in the context of a more nuanced understanding of mental illness and substance abuse. This would have been an opportunity to address the criticism for Mr Rochester’s character, having locked up his wife while in a fragile state and hidden the truth from Jane until he is exposed on their wedding day.  

Julia Grace, as Mr Rochester’s ward, Adèle, proved to be the scene-stealer of the show, injecting humour and a free spiritedness in a welcome reprieve from the constant loss.

Belford-Thomas’s task as Jane was challenging. The production quickly moves through Jane’s younger years leaving little room for a clear arc to emerge. Belford-Thomas’ performance was precocious and charming but lacked development, leaving Jane at 10 and 19 difficult to distinguish. In the moments, where Jane should have spoken up, she was silent and vice versa. 

This is furthered by fourth wall breaks where Jane addresses the audience more frequently than the characters in the scene in a commentary-style. Despite this being a way to include the “dear reader” passages from the book, it made it seem like events were happening around Jane rather than her directly participating in them. 

Vincent Andriano as Mr Rochester incorporates small ticks that are well-thought out and consistent, making him a three-dimensional character that is very likeable and funny. His quips like, “a true Jane-ian reply” and “you are from the otherworld”, were heartwarming touches and stark comparisons to how her Aunt and cousins had treated her. 

With regards to the relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester, of note is the considerable age-gap and the positionality of Mr Rochester being Jane’s employer that plagues any adaptation of Jane Eyre. In this version, these concerns were only drawn to attention when Mr Rochester mockingly refers to Jane as “little”, and when other characters say he is old enough to be her father. 

Once you look past this, their ‘meet-cute’ (when Mr Rochester is on his horse) very much preserved the silent (or silenced) tension from the book. However, the manner in which the rest of the relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester unfolds suffers as a result of Jane’s attraction being less convincing compared to Mr Rochester, who does the heavy lifting in that regard. 

As Brontë ascribed to the story, the importance of religion was foreshadowed and clear to the audience long before Jane left Mr Rochester. Similarly, the repetitive and didactic old school ritual of repeating French, conjugating Latin, and singing hymns is a motif across the play reinforced by Susan Carveth and Ali Bendall’s great costuming that a modern audience may link to The Handmaid’s Tale. The use of public shame is emphasised both verbally and in the highly believable physical choreography.

In an intentional casting choice, Jane’s abusive schoolmaster Mr Brocklehust and Jane’s missionary suiter are both played by Neilson Brown. He becomes a stand-in for an emotionally distant Protestant judge who Jane can never quite escape, even as she moves between homes. This pressure on Jane may justify the director’s choice to give her more confidence early on. Belford-Thomas keeps Jane strong willed till the end but her resistance takes on a sense of piety that has been drilled in consciously or otherwise. 

By and by, this adaptation of Jane Eyre was a fitting last performance, destined to make you want to revisit the 591 page novel. The production was a window into a world where even the smallest transgressions feel out of place. (Valerie Chidiac and Angus McGregor)

The New York Times reviews the book Salvage by Dionne Brand.

In “Salvage,” which Brand calls “an autobiography of the autobiography of reading,” she returns to some of the 18th- and 19th-century social-realist novels — “Vanity Fair,” “Jane Eyre,” “Robinson Crusoe” and “Mansfield Park” — that she read as a young person, along with more recent spinoffs such as Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” and J.M. Coetzee’s “Foe.” Having been trained to read the classics as an Anglophile Commonwealth subject, first in the West Indies and then in Canada, Brand rereads them to recover the Black and Indigenous lives that English realism obscured. [...]

Equally suggestive are moments in Brand’s book when she shows us how a passage ostensibly not about the violence of colonialism is in fact a barely conscious acknowledgment of it. Reading Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” for example, Brand stresses not only that it is a novel of “confinement and submission” for its white female characters, but that the wealth and luxury in the novel are “produced by the political economy of slavery,” including in the case of Jane Eyre herself, who attains financial independence when she inherits an estate in Madeira, a former sugar colony.

Confinement and submission thus double as unacknowledged descriptions of the colonial world on which the book’s English characters depend. The episode in which Jane Eyre hears “the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan” of Bertha Mason, the famous “madwoman in the attic,” is perhaps the most important in Brontë’s narrative. Bertha’s groan, her immeasurable suffering, has been interpreted many ways; Brand reads it as “the noise of the plantation world, the suppressed, the made-mad, the sequestered” that was Blackness. This is the very essence, and paradox, of so-called novels of sympathy that became so iconic during English colonialism: “The contentment” that Jane Eyre “feels, and that we are to feel for her, is riven with violence.” (Sophie Gee)

A contributor to The Herald writes about reading mostly women.

This year I’m reading Agatha Christie novels as palate cleansers between other books, though the big find has been Jean Rhys, another rackety and reclusive genius, and author of Wide Sargasso Sea. It re-frames Jane Eyre through the eyes of Mrs Rochester, though that description doesn’t come close to capturing its vivid magic. (Barry Didcock)

Keighley News features a new exhibition at Keighley Library.

Creative writing produced by women who have experienced domestic abuse and sexual violence is being displayed in Keighley.

The work is on show at the town's library, alongside pieces by the Brontës, until the end of this month.

Bradford-based charity Staying Put worked with Dr Hannah Roche, of the University of York, and Professor Katy Mullin – based at the University of Leeds – to organise a series of workshops.

With survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence, they discussed work by writers ranging from the Brontës to Bernardine Evaristo.

The texts helped women in the group to recognise signs and patterns of coercive control, and to 'process' their own experiences.

Participants then produced work themselves.

Dr Roche says: "When we have discussed extracts from Victorian novels, the women in the group have been surprised by how closely their own experiences reflect those of certain characters – Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, for example.

"The fact that a woman in 2024 can recognise herself and her experience in a novel from 1847 tells us just how long the behavioural patterns and timelines of coercive control have been established.

"Those who took part reported that reading and writing about coercive control, as well as acts of strength and solidarity, enabled them to access parts of trauma that 'felt stuck' and helped them move on and feel more confident and valued." (Alistair Shand)