A breath of fresh Eyre at the National
Jane Eyre (Royal National Theatre, London)
Verdict: Theatre at its most imaginative
WHEN you r ead my description of this stage adaptation of one of the great English novels, you may be tempted to groan. Resist that urge. This show is a delight: clever, touching, beautifully acted, minimalist yet expansive, a production that makes you see entire new possibilities in theatre. I recommend it with a roar.
Director Sally Cookson and her cast of ten did not start with a script. They themselves ‘devised’ the story’s telling. An essay in the programme begins to explain this, yet it sounds pretty daunting: right up to the last few rehearsals, they were dropping scenes, inserting new touches, experimenting and multi-role playing.
I know, I know, it sounds precious and irritating. So may the set: pale planks and a central, very basic platform with a few different levels, ladders and iron bars. Right in the middle is a small band, which plays jazzy, folky songs and provides backing music, while the actors con- vey things such as the clattering journey of a horse-drawn coach.
By now you are rolling your eyes, thinking I have gone soft in the head. Bear with me, as they say in call centres. Oh, did I mention that one man, amid his other roles, plays Mr Rochester’s dog, Pilot? Did I mention that the show starts with a grown woman wailing like a baby? And that the whole thing lasts for three and a half hours? By this point,
you may be thinking of booking for some dreadful show such as The Book Of Mormon. Stop! Redirect yourselves to the Lyttleton stage and this magnificent, uplifting production instead.
For with a few impressionistic flicks, a windblown veil here, a line of flames there, it creates and redefines Charlotte Bronte’s celebrated tale. We may have our own ideas about how Jane and Mr Rochester and St John Rivers and little Adele look and sound. Prepare to exchange those ideas for fresh interpetations.
Madeleine Worrall’s Jane is a short, plucky Northerner, neither
too pretty (quite right) nor too bold. Bronte wrote of her sense of entrapment and here she pushes open a window frame which has been placed before her by other actors — and as she does so there is a burst of wind and a fluttering of bird feathers to signify her dream of freedom.
Felix Hayes’s Rochester is not exactly posh but he certainly lives ‘on the crater- crust’ and knows that life might spew fire at him at any moment. He is impulsive, direct beyond the point of rudeness — a volcano himself.
As Jane falls in love, the gifted Melanie Marshall ( who plays Rochester’s deranged wife) sings Mad About The Boy. It could jar, but i t does not. When Jane returns to Rochester’s Thornfield Hall after a month’s absence, she says: ‘I’ve been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.’
Rochester: ‘A true Jane-ian reply!’ The modern idiom does not sound at all odd because director Cookson has managed to plant us in a completely different zone from that of normal costume drama. And yet this is a show with corsets and smocks and a bath chair.
This i s theatre at i ts most imaginative and the hours skip past. Enchanting.