Chris Eldon Lee reviews Jane Eyre, which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme until 28th May
So, there I was – settling down to review yet another small-cast adaptation of ‘Jane Eyre’. After all, Charlotte Bronte has plenty of fans. She sells tickets. People like straight-forward adaptations. This should be a gentle enough assignment.
Forget that! It only took a few minutes for me to conclude that I was watching something very special indeed. This production is several cuts above the rest. It is in a class of its own. It’s certainly faithful to the novel; but straight forward, it is definitely not.
For a start, in a piece of audacious casting, the superb Eleanor Sutton plays both Mrs Rochesters. Costume-wise, there is only a hairclip between them … as Jane’s neat bun cascades down around the wild, heaving shoulders of her poor mad predecessor. The actor – expertly tutored by movement coach Will Tuckett – completes the transformation with her squirming, jagging body.
This parallel had already been neatly previewed. Writer Chris Bush makes a point of including the early scene where the bullied, defiant schoolgirl Jane is also incarcerated for her behaviour. So, she knows how it feels.
The production is intricately inter-woven, and Bush judiciously chops the text so that director Zoe Waterman can crash scenes together to speed things along. The play is pacey and emotional throughout; increasingly so, as the story unfolds.
We are blessed with half a dozen excellent actor-musicians, headed by Miss Sutton and the bald and ginger-bearded Sam Jenkins-Shaw as the gruff, exasperated, very-Yorkshire Mr. Rochester. For me, he towered in an already lofty production.
Considering Rochester wants to appear unfeeling; this is a very emotive portrayal indeed. His latent kindness is crushed, of course, by his marital burden. He is intensely torn; just as caged as his wife. But he does show his underbelly and the unexpressed falling-in-love between he and Jane had the audience giggling. Bush seems to have assumed we will know the story, because she drops in-jokes into the script to tantalize.
Rochester’s entrance is accompanied by a most sinister song. Music is crucial to this production and a suite of very satisfying original songs has been composed by Simon Slater. He’s taken bucolic lyrics that might have been collected by Cecil Sharp … and given them an edgy instrumentation Kurt Weil would be proud of. The result is unique.
Slater can be particularly sentimental when required. When Jane’s virtuous friend Helen dies, he gives her a tender deathbed song “Rose of the Valley” to a backdrop of gentle strings; the scene bathed in blue luminance.
Nia Gandhi gets Helen’s sense of self-acceptance just right … and is also bumptiously funny as Miss Adele, singing her tiresome French songs. Indeed, every actor has their ‘moments’. Tomi Ogbaro, for example, is physically frightening as the unbearable Brocklehurst. But Jane is his match. “How will you avoid hell? ” he bawls. “I must not die, sir.” Witty writing peppers the play.
When Rochester’s proposal of marriage to Jane finally comes, he gets down on one knee and bellows it out loud. Thunder crashes all around. The stage is split by folk lightning, fracturing both their futures. The harsh drama of this moment makes the final healing all the more welcoming.
Bronte’s legions will love this show (a New Vic/Scarborough co-production) and it’s a fabulously clear and feisty introduction for newcomers.
“It’s quite a tale”, says Jane. And she is right.