Jane Eyre!!!!! (*Some spoilers). This is a fantastically Gothic and elemental version of Jane Eyre, putting the drama back into costume drama. There are enough bonnets and costumes to give a suggestion of the era the novel/dramatisation is set in, but the focus is on the characters and the action, rather than the frills and furbelows.
The set is stripped back - a series of ladders, a ramp and platforms, and having watched this again - the lighting! The lighting effects are so clever, really suggesting settings, moods and emotions - from suspended lightbulbs from the ceiling for Thornfield Hall and actors holding torches for candles around the house to the intense red of the dreaded Red Room, and fire shooting up in the background (real fire!) as Jane walks across a dark landscape to find her Rochester. Also darkness for Rochester encountering Jane for the first time and the powerful imagination of Jane 'seeing' her dead uncle's ghost in the Red Room.
The Gothic-ness is also depicted in Jane's embodied thoughts - she is surrounded by a Greek chorus of emotions and memories, who are both supportive and critical of her and her actions, such as in moving into her wedding dress; in comparative drawings of herself and potential rival for Mr Rochester's affections, Blanche Ingram; in directing her choices and actions.
Best of all in this production is Pilot the dog - the action playing him is brilliant and provides some comic relief to all the Gothic-ness, There are also subtle details - Pilot is all over Jane which helps Rochester to identify that she's returned to him at the end - Pilot spots her! Adele is also characterised very well, as a whirl of movement and spinning - the chaos of Thornfield Hall is shown in a whirl of child and dog!
In these productions, it's always interesting to see what or who gets cut. The main events of the novel are there - Helen Burns is given an slightly grumpy spin and some of her spiritual lines have been condensed. The play is determined to portray all adults and authority figures (apart from Jane's parents) as unrelentingly harsh and grim - Bessie the maid's kindness is lost until Jane's return as an adult to her aunt's house; St John loses a housekeeper and sister (these are all combined into one sister); the kind teacher who offers literal tea and sympathy and cake! to feed up Jane, Helen Burns and others and ends up overthrowing the brutal boarding school regime to become a kinder Headmistress is gone. St John's love interest side story with a rich, pretty woman is gone too - he is all about Jane! Mr Rochester's housekeeper again has lost most of her kindness and is entirely bourgeoise and rather disapproving. A lot of the silly hangers-on at Rochester's country house weekend are gone with their class snobbery and comment on the expectations of women at this time, although Blanche Ingram's bouncing ringlets remain! The scene where Rochester disguises himself as a fortune teller (one of the more bizarre moments in the story) is also gone, and yet it is pivotal to the forthcoming action and emotions of the characters. But it is weird! The majority of adults are just shown as bad.
The casting choices are interesting and sometimes eye-popping. The cast play all the parts needed. This can lead to some *interesting* school girls - with beards! St John, who only wants to marry Jane for her labour, is played by a woman and I wonder why they did this, apart from to suggest how feminine . The lawyer who turns up to stop the wedding is a woman, which loses something of the sense of Jane as a woman of spirit and intelligence but without means or supporters working her way through a world of power, powerful people and men. However, the parts are all very well down - the lawyer is wonderful tweedy; St John comes through even with loss of a extra kind sister and the dour housekeeper, and the schoolgirls keep you on your toes!
And yet, for the extreme condensing of the story towards the end and the loss of the best bits of poor, plain, potentially without employer references Jane's powerful speech of self-worth, truthful morality and dignity in rejecting the role of mistress to Rochester to more emotional resistance, this is an extremely well done version of Jane Eyre. It is elemental, expressing much of the emotions in the novel that might not come through fully in a play, using creativity and imagination throughout. Symbols are used brilliantly - the story begins and ends with a baby girl...
It's worth watching alone for the sense of place and travel shown through the stagecoach journeys Jane makes, even encountering delays due to a flock of sheep on the road! Music is integrated wonderfully into the drama - a mixture of modern and folk songs, Bertha is given dignity in singing almost operatically, having presence on stage and yet still being other and strange. Even the positioning of the actors within the music suggests the tension of the relationship between the three main characters. Rochester, as well as Bertha, is allowed to give his side of things. The ending is extremely satisfyingly Romantic, with a capital 'R'. Also, respect to the cast for scrambling up and down ladders, 'Jane' especially in thick skirts over a ladder next to a fire; up and down ramps and planks and no-one dies!
The perfect social isolation, pandemic drama as Jane experiences social isolation (in the Red Room and stranded in a town trying to sell her boots rather than her gloves - would gloves get lost in all the elemental running and scrambling around?) Furthermore, there is an outbreak of disease at the school and Jane is socially isolated for her behaviour at the school to begin with. There is much to empathise with, but also to enjoy in the imaginative, elemental, emotional expanse of this dramatisation. Not around for much longer, spare three hours and watch!
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