One of the world’s most loved novels has been brought to the stage by the Bristol Old Vic and Jane Eyre is at the Richmond Theatre all this week. I urge you to go, it is beyond praise. The production values are of the highest quality, from the superb direction by Sally Cookson, the adventure playground climbing frame set by Michael Vale, the powerful lighting effects by Aideen Malone and the eerie and hypnotic sound by Dominic Bilkey. The acting from everyone on stage is spellbinding. Lynda Rooke plays both Mrs Reed and Mrs Fairfax with consummate ease and the way she morphs from one to the other within seconds is astonishing. Hannah Bristow plays five different parts and in each she brings authenticy and depth of character. Her portrayal of the saintly Helen Burns is wonderful. Melanie Marshal as Bertha Mason, the infamous mad woman in the attic, is a brooding presence given added poignancy by her operatic singing voice. Paul Mundel plays three parts, one of which is Pilot the dog. This must be the best impression of a dog ever given on stage and it is brilliant. The way he pants and wags a leather belt to indicate his tail wagging is delightful and his facial expressions and bodily postures are so dog like, that one begins to think he really might be a dog.
Nadia Clifford is superb as Jane Eyre, she shows us Jane as a child and as a woman fighting injustice and seeking freedom. She is a pocket battleship of an actress. Tim Delap as Edward Fairfax Rochester is a Byronic hero whose first words are” Fuck Fuck Fuck,” (an echo of Four Weddings & A Funeral there) as he falls from his horse when he first meets Jane. This scene is a foreshadowing of the end of the play when he is purified by fire as he rescues his wife Bertha from the wreckage of his country house Thornfield Hall. (Note the name of the house, a crown of thorns!) Everything here is symbolic. Burning by fire echoing both the biblical fires of hell but also the Hindu cremation fires of Sati here with a gender reversal, the subsequent blinding of Rochester echoing the biblical blinding of Samson and the idea of the proud man falling and needing to be humbled before he can be loved. It is all wonderfully epic stuff and done with great invention and originality. The fire, for example, is brilliantly and scarily effective, its real fire live on stage. The live musical accompaniment from Matthew Churcher and David Ridley, on stage throughout, is most effective in creating the dynamic forward movement of the play. The scenes depicting coach travel with stops for a loo break are pure genius.
In 1989 Francis Fukuyama published a book “The End of History and the Last Man” in which he argued that the French Revolution of 1789 had brought Humanity to the end of its political development as we had arrived at equality and liberty in the form of Liberal Democracy. He argued that the Collapse of the Communist bloc on the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution in 1989 was just the latest playing out of this End point of History. Fukuyama argued that what drove the urge towards universal liberal democracy was “The Search For Recognition.“ In other words each of has an innate need to be recognised and that this need cannot be denied and will result in universal human rights and liberal democracy. One of the great strands in that story of human recognition has of course been the struggle by women for justice and equality. The founding text of women’s liberation in this country was Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of The Rights of Women “ written in 1792, just at the time of the French Revolution. However I would argue that it is Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) – the scene between Jane and Rochester in which she insists that she is a free human being is surely Jane demanding her right to Recognition – that has been the more powerful carrier of the case for women’s rights. Why? In a word, “storytelling.” The novel has proved to be the best vehicle we have to tell a story and get it to a wide readership.
The current production of Jane Eyre at Richmond Theatre is bringing this wonderful novel to life on the stage and for that we must surely be grateful. After last night’s performance, I am going straight back to the novel.
