The Daily Telegraph - Features
The Brontë legend retold with sibling rivalry
Underdog: The Other Other Brontë National’s Dorfman Theatre, London SE1
★★★★★
What with their brief lives, shared angst and literary legacy, the Brontë sisters are an endless source of fascination. Besides the biographies and screen biopics (most recently, Sally Wainwright’s 2016 drama To Walk Invisible), theatre can’t resist them either.
Two good stage examples are Blake Morrison’s We Are Three Sisters (which used Chekhov’s Three Sisters as its template) and Shared Experience’s Brontë, which haunted the authors with their creations.
The National has, in recent years, showcased compelling productions of Jane Eyre (Charlotte) and Wuthering Heights (Emily), though it hasn’t touched The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne). One of the questions that Sarah Gordon’s canny but overly perky portrait of the siblings might leave you with is whether that omission is the result of artistic merit or a form of in-house marginalisation. “It’s time I tried to tell the truth... about how one [sister] became an idol and the other became known as the third sister,” declares Gemma Whelan’s captivatingly forthright Charlotte at the start, taking centre-stage in a red dress, boldly conspiratorial but a bit sheepish: “I hope you won’t all judge me too harshly.”
The contention is that envy was no stranger to the Haworth parsonage and what began as a joint enterprise of attempted female empowerment suffered the schisms of individual ambition.
In terms of novels being accepted for publication, Emily and Anne got there first, while Charlotte’s The
‘Must you write her as a governess, when that is the very heart and soul of my book?’
Professor was rejected. Here, our heroine is bluntly aghast: “F--that!” And she proceeds to dash off Jane Eyre, and get it published ahead of the other two.
“Must you write her as a governess... when that is the very heart and soul of my book [Agnes Grey]?” Anne, played by Rhiannon Clements, protests. Gordon further alights on the fact that Charlotte blocked a reprint of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall after Anne’s death.
Just what animated that element of reputation control is an interesting debating point, albeit those most able to assess it are likely to be familiar with the arguments. But to what dramatic end is this “underdog” issue foregrounded (with Emily rather elbowed out of the main frame)? To illustrate that a venerated Brontë can have feet of clay; to allow them all due complexity? The show ends with an irony: having tried to shape perceptions and counter sensationalism, Charlotte is bundled into a display case; Brontë “world” becomes a heritage trap.
Gordon commendably crams a lot of information into one eminently (but rather swearily) accessible evening, but it could be said that her potted history falls into that trap, too.
It’s as if in fearing to make the past dull, it must be brought alive in primary colours. In avoiding the clichés of the gothic – gloomy days, moaning winds – she errs towards the goonish, with the eclipsed brother, Branwell (along with the gate-keeping publishing domain, incarnated by a cohort of male supporting players), played for contemptuous laughs.
It’s stylishly designed by Grace Smart, pacily staged by Natalie Ibu, and winningly played across the board. It’s time to let the novels, in all their richness – and we hear precious little of that sublime writing – speak for themselves.
Until May 25, nationaltheatre.org.uk. Then at Northern Stage, Newcastle (northernstage.co.uk), June 7-22