What a wonderful and original production! Director Sally Cookson’s theatrical interpretation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for National Theatre Live, co-devised with her cast of ten and co-produced with Bristol’s Old Vic, is intensely passionate, witty, touching and strongly feminist.
It is political by sheer virtue of its being a woman’s story told from her perspective, and is faithful in tone to the novel. Jane is played by Madeleine Worrall as feisty, truthful and sensitive, facing her hard life with a loving heart, formidable integrity and good cheer. Opening and closing with the words ‘it’s a girl’, the play is beautifully structured, superbly performed by the cast and thrilling in every respect. It’s long, over three hours long, but there’s no flab, nothing you’d want to do without.
Theatrical devices are delightful; Michael Vale’s set design of ladders and platforms is inspired and made full use of, the symbolism – especially where Jane’s wedding veil is torn in two – speaks clear throughout, and there are many moments of radiant theatrical imagery including real flames on stage, and then there is the use of music, and of space, and of the performers’ bodies.
At times the cast becomes Jane’s train of thought, the actors become a coach and horses, and Rochester’s hound Pilate is brought hilariously to life by Craig Edwards. The (mostly original) live score, via a jazz/blues band led by Benji Bower, is an integral part of the staging, along with the glorious voice of Melanie Marshall which slowly becomes the voice of a character, Rochester’s first wife Bertha Mason, the ‘mad woman in the attic’. Marshall’s rendition of Gnarls Barkely’s Crazy and of Noel Coward’s Mad About the Boy are downright spooky in this context. (The unspoken questions about Bertha’s background are here given space, and the effect of the music, lighting and imagery surrounding Marshall somehow reminds you of Jean Rhys’ seminal novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which attempts to answer them.)
Felix Hayes’s Rochester is abrupt, growly and eccentric but his vulnerability shows through sufficiently for Jane (and her audience) to sense how much he values her. Laura Elphinstone somewhat overdoes the annoying young Adele, but shows her versatility playing as well Jane’s friend Helen and the horribly self-righteous missionary St John Rivers.
The whole thing is just beautiful. You needn’t have read Jane Eyre the novel to adore this production but it’s even more of a delight if you have. Not to be missed.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Jane Eyre
National Theatre Live
On at Cinema Nova until Sunday February 21.
