Charlotte Bronte based Jane Eyre on her own dark passions, dreams, frustrations and rebellion against a lonely and monotonous life. Her novel has all the ingredients of a popular romantic Gothic melodrama.
An orphan is abused at home and at school. A young governess is in love with the master of the house. A mad wife is hidden away in the attic. A bigamous marriage is stopped at the altar. A manor house is burned to the ground and the hero is left blinded.
Published in 1847 Jane Eyre remains one of the most popular novels of the 19th century. It was first staged in 1848 and there have been many stage versions since.
There have been at least eleven films: one in 1944 with Orson Welles (too young) and Joan Fontaine (too pretty); another in 2011 with Mia Wasikowska (too bland) and Michael Fassbender (too lethargic).
There have also been two musicals, two operas, and a dance drama by Shanghai Ballet. The best stage version I have seen was Polly Teale’s clever and imaginative adaptation for Shared Experience with Monica Dolan as Jane.
So, I arrive at the theatre feeling I know the novel really well, only to discover the whole ballet is being lived through Jane Eyre’s eyes and that I am having difficulty following the fragmentary dreamlike scenario and wishing I had read the synopsis first.
Despite not always knowing what is going on, I much enjoy Cathy Marston’s choreography to Philip Feeney’s music. The bigamous wedding and the manor fire are particularly successful dramatically. I am also fascinated by the six D-Men, inner demons in white, who encircle and intimidate Jane.
But I never feel Sarah Chun and Joseph Taylor, good though they are in their own right, are Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester. He is not brooding enough. They are not as stark and Gothic as the dancers in the picture on the programme cover.
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