Charlotte Brontë : Jane Eyre
Bristol Old Vic
National Theatre
Music by Benji Bower
Directed by Sally Cookson
I wasn't actually sure how I should be heading this article, because although the performance was broadcast under the aegis of the National Theatre, it's my understanding that the company was assembled by Bristol Old Vic, and is still the same as when this adaptation was premiered in Bristol last year. On the other hand, then it was two nights, but the NT made it a condition of its transfer to London that it be slimmed down to one night, which was duly done, though at a little over three hours' running time (including the interval), it's still not exactly a short evening.
Adapting a work of this stature must have been a daunting task. In fact, there is (or was) no fixed script detailing an adaptation, instead director Sally Cookson and the ten actors and musicians who make up the cast went into rehearsals with an outline, and proceeded to invent the whole proceedings collectively. It's an interesting idea; at times you're clearly hearing Brontë, at others the language is quite distinctly un-period. Then there's the music, almost constant, mostly performed by a on-stage trio, with some songs, but sometimes recorded when a more dramatic sound was wanted. However, there's a distinct slant to it all, and it's not the usual one.
With all due respect to Brontë (and not for one second do I dispute its status as one of the greatest novels of 19th Century English literature), Jane Eyre is, for its sins and ours, the prototype of, and template for, the Harlequin romance novel. It's usually that aspect, the love story between Jane and Rochester, that is emphasised in adaptations, just think of any one of the filmed versions you may have seen, whether on the large or small screen. Cookson has, I think, very consciously tried, not to avoid it exactly, that's impossible, but to reduce it, put it into a much bigger context, that of Jane's whole life. When you come down to it, the events of Thornfield occupy not even a year, a fraction of Jane's life to date, a tumultuous one, to be sure, but just a fraction nevertheless, and this was what Cookson seemed to be trying to bring out.
What emerges therefore is Jane's determination to be perceived as a being of some value, of a worth equal, if of a different nature, to any of those around her. It is, in some respects, a feminist agenda, and that seems particularly underlined by the way the play begins with Jane's birth ("It's a girl") and ends with the same line, for the birth of Jane and Rochester's child - except that in the book, it's a boy, not a girl, so there is certainly an agenda there. However, for most of the play, Jane does not really express a desire for equality because of or despite being a woman, but because she is a human being, and feels cheated of what she feels should be her due as such.
A large part of the first act is therefore devoted to Jane's earlier years, her birth, her life with her aunt and cousins, and then her years at Lowood, and interaction with Helen Burns. This is intended to let you see Jane's character taking shape, how she absorbs and reflects the nature of the people surrounding her, but I have to say I found the whole Burns episode rather long-winded. I do wonder what was cut to reduce the performance from two nights to one, and think this section could have done with further pruning, assuming it received any at all. The other section I found a little long was the whole business with Blanche Ingram, but they had put the interval in the midst of this - after Rochester declares his intent to propose to Blanche, but before he does so to Jane - so I suppose it needed to be balanced on either side of the break.
While the costumes are period, the staging is anything but. On a stage framed by tall, white drapery, sits a large wooden dais on which rests an assemblage of wooden platforms, walk-ways, stairs and vertical ladders that resemble more a set under construction than anything else. The actors manoeuver their way around this playground/obstacle course with remarkable facility, though it's a little distracting at times, but any impression of a handsome Restoration-period mansion, for example, has to rely completely on the delivery of the text and on the lighting for effect. The lighting, however, was excellent, very varied, for far more than times of day or interiors as against exteriors. It also was used to evoke interior thought against exterior speech or action, as well as more dramatic things, like Jane's dreaded Red Room, or the storm after which she is found by the Rivers sisters (or rather, in this adaptation, just Diana and St. John).
Bower's music, too, was good enough to sustain its near constant presence, sometimes just a background murmur, other times coming well to the foreground, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Michael Nyman. Here, too, was one of the major innovations of this show. The cast, as noted, is small, and of the ten performers, eight of them played a variety of roles, major or minor, and regardless of gender. Two held to a single character. One was Madeleine Worrall, as Jane. The other was, for a good part of Act 1, simply a singer, in a rich, red dress, Melanie Marshall, whose fine voice gave shape to the thoughts in some of the characters' heads at times, as song is often meant to do, but whose lingering presence at the back of the stage remained a mystery, until she emerged as Bertha Rochester, the mad first wife. At which point, you could only wonder just how much of what she had been singing about applied to her, Bertha, as much as to anybody else on stage, a very striking concept indeed, quite aside from the fact that it was a pleasure to listen to her sing.
There were other intriguing notions. The coach rides, for example, were definitely entertaining. Pilot, Rochester's dog, was also given a presence, Craig Edwards gambolling around the stage in a way that should have been ludicrous, yet ended up endearing. This peculiarly effective idea did bring up one point quite successfully, that the dog was able to show Jane the affection his master could not. Felix Hayes was suitably brusque as Rochester, but most of the show rested on Madeleine Worrall's very capable shoulders. She made a persuasive Jane, unglamorous and diminutive, but stubborn and sturdy, mostly very sure of her inner being, though open to painful doubt at times. That sense of an indomitable will was clearly projected (and her Yorkshire accent fluctuated less than it did for some of the other members of cast).
A fine production, therefore, slightly too long, but imaginatively staged and well performed.
[Next : 18th December]
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