Adapted by
Polly Teale, from novel by Charlotte Bronte, by Shared Experience Theatre
Melbourne Arts
Festival 1999
At Playhouse, Arts
Centre Melbourne, October 14 to 23, 1999
Reviewer: Kate
Herbert
Jane Eyre is a
gaspingly moving story. This adaptation for stage by Polly Teale and
English company, Shared Experience, captures the passion, repression, anguish
and joy of Charlotte Bronte's characters.
What is unusual about Teale's interpretation is that Mr.
Rochester's (Sean Murray) deranged wife, Bertha, Harriette Ashcroft who is
incarcerated in the attic, appears to reside within Jane Eyre. (Penny Layden)
Even when she is a child in her Aunt Reid's (Joan Blackman) unhappy home, the
wild, exotic and sexual Bertha is Jane's alter ego.
At the tender age of 10, Jane succumbs to a fit of rage
against her cruel aunt. To overcome such unfamiliar, embarrassing passion, Jane
metaphorically locks her lunatic self into the attic.
Teale and Shared Experience employ vivid physical metaphor
to represent other relationships and notions that are so powerfully evoked
through language in the novel.
Bertha crouches behind Jane, her arms and voice acting in
concert with Jane's own. Jane twitches when Bertha slams against the door
upstairs. She gasps with secret lust as Bertha writhes in sexual ecstasy and as
Bertha swings her in a wild emotional hurricane.
This physical and metaphorical representation of the
characters' inner worlds also applies to Rochester. He is accompanied by his
huge, lusty dog, Pilot (Michael Matus) and unbridled horse. (Philip Rham) The
male energy is palpable and his primitive Id surges uncontrolled into this
formerly female environment.
Teale's direction is impassioned and stylish. She conjures a
detailed inner an outer world through clever theatrical convention. This production
suffers none of the usual problems of a novel clumsily spilled onto the stage.
The play is enhanced by the rough-hewn attic design (Neil Warmington) as well
as the evocative live cello (Philip Rham) composed by Peter Salem and lighting
(Chris Davey).
This is a fine and versatile ensemble which plumbs the
depths of despair and hilarity. Layden's interpretation of Jane as an ungainly,
almost autistic creature is provocative while Murray prowls like a lion as
Rochester. Matus transforms extraordinarily into dog, man and boy while
Ashcroft creates a fiery other world in the dynamic Bertha. Hannah Miles,
Octavia Walters, Rham and Blackman complete a cast of exceptional
skill.
Shared Experience is a surprising recommendation for the
adaptation of fine literature for the
stage
by Kate Herbert
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