“shake & stir’s vision of Jane Eyre is a powerful creation of a beloved classic for our times”
“At the centre, of course, is Jane Eyre, delivered with a paradoxical passionate restraint by co-adaptor Nelle Lee…Garner as all four males is suitably arrogant and nasty in different ways and his Rochester has ..a vulnerability which helps the audience understand Jane’s obsession with him. A fabulously talented Jodie Le Vesconte brings a polish to many vignettes,... McLeod does a truly terrifying mad wife in contrast to her poppet Adele.”
Kate Stratford
4.5 /5 progressive Victorians
Lightning cracks and shatters an old chestnut tree. Something is deeply wrong in the natural world; an offence to nature has been committed. In a world where the feminine is the natural world (the “universal mother”) and the masculine is the artificial, imposed order something must give, and it does so violently.
What was the offence against nature? A man lies and attempts bigamy, drawing an innocent woman into his deep deceit.
Beneath Charlotte Bronte’s story of a tiny, tough, independent woman seeking to live her authentic own life, are a myriad of themes and images and motifs; but the most dominant is that of elemental world of women and the unnatural one of men.
shake & stir’s vision of Jane Eyre is a powerful creation of a beloved classic for our times. Both the director (Michael Futcher) and designer (Josh McIntosh) have moments of exceptional insight. Jane’s room, no matter where she is, is a cage topped by an attic. Beautiful metaphors both. The attic is Jane’s id and at Thornfield, that id is inhabited by Bertha Mason, Rochester’s mad, incarcerated wife. (Possibly being locked in an attic with almost no human connection, being sexually and emotionally traumatised may have contributed to her madness.) Exposed as having a wife on the day of his wedding to Jane, Rochester physically, brutally restrains the hysterical Bertha and Jane, watching, reaches out not to the man she loves but in empathy to the woman so tormented. It is not a moment in the novel, but Futcher has made an insightful decision here, layering so much into Jane’s character. Bertha is the embodiment of Jane’s lifelong frustration, pain, anger and distress. Jane’s empathy extends to Adele, an orphaned child of one of Rochester’s mistresses which, as Jane rightly points out, is no fault of Adele’s. Futcher creates an Adele, (Sarah McLeod) as a doll/puppet in Act 1 but in Act2, under Jane’s tutelage, she finds her own voice. McLeod’s original music, using lines from the novel, and played live informs much of the haunting atmosphere. Only one male plays all male roles (Julian Garner) and whilst this might have been a pragmatic decision, it plays right into the theme of the hard, judgemental, misogynistic male world. It does not matter where Jane goes, at the heart there is always the same male hostility.
An unforgiving, gothic monochromatic setting reflects not just the genre of the story but the lack of joy and love in Jane’s life and works dynamically across time and space. When you first enter, it seems a foreshadowing of the burnt-out Thornfield to come. But the overwhelming sense is of the damp misery which is a Yorkshire winter. Jason Glenwright’s moody lighting creates shadows and suspicions and places to hide. Stunning live effects by Michael Steer answer the question of “how are they going to stage ….?” The mind boggles at the risk management plan associated with this production.
At the centre, of course, is Jane Eyre, delivered with a paradoxical passionate restraint by co-adaptor Nelle Lee. Her Jane matures from a bold 10-year-old to a thoughtful, intelligent governess and finally a brave woman of integrity and independence. Always isolated, always outspoken. Three other players bring life to an array of characters with physical finesse. Garner as all four males is suitably arrogant and nasty in different ways and his Rochester has (despite the odd slipping Yorkshire accent) a vulnerability which helps the audience understand Jane’s obsession with him. A fabulously talented Jodie Le Vesconte brings a polish to many vignettes, her Mrs Fairfax has the good humour and slight age limp of a long serving housekeeper whilst her Blanche Ingram borders ever so nicely on the elegant bitchy. McLeod does a truly terrifying mad wife in contrast to her poppet Adele.
Jane Eyre is a novel beloved of many and one which has undergone a myriad of stage and film adaptations and re-imaginings, each one reflecting the zeitgeist of its current culture. Inevitably, and because the novel is so dense, the creators (Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij) have to make painful decisions about what to keep and what to throw – else we have a Nicholas Nickleby situation of a 9 hour play. And how to work that in a meaningful way? The sister’s motif has been jettisoned or minimised, as has the cousin-ex-machina subplot, and the depictions of sublime landscapes and wild weather, so often used to reflect Jane’s internal world although this has been translated in the production to a haunting score and well-integrated sound effects. Through these omissions we lose the exploration of Janes deep want and need for familial love, and the ever-present connection between the woman and the witchy ways of nature, fairies, and spirits. A painful choice for adapters to make but a wise one. The feminist lens gives focus to the universality of Jane’s struggles, only strengthened by the small cast.
The decision to place interval where it is instead at the more likely aforementioned tree cracking or Mrs Reid’s death at the end of Volume 1 of the novel is a little problematic. Yes, Act 1 might have been slightly longer but the audience seemed comfortable with where they were at and it may have given more time to develop the end reconciliation which is a little unsatisfying. Rochester never admits his wrongdoing to Jane – only to his god. Should we play with the ending a little more for a 21st century audience and have Rochester say “I’m sorry”?
As I was leaving, I heard an indignant young female voice ask “What! So she marries him anyway even though he lied to her?” Indeed. No redemption of the male here.
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
