National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic co-production of Jane Eyre
‘Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties –they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation.’
Radical writing that, though playing stalking horse in the guise of a Gothic romance, explodes from the page with a modern dynamic energy and humanity. Neither can few readers ever forget those most evocative of love’s consummating lines from Jane – ‘He made me love him without looking at me/Reader, I married him.’
That sleepy parsonage in Haworth, destined to become one of the 19th century’s mother lodes of proto-feminist literature, also came perilously close to ruination following the family’s involvement in the 1845 Railway Mania investment mass hysteria. To think that Charlotte, who lost her shirt, might have written the prequel to the Dot.com bubble crash.
Manchester born and bred Nadia Clifford will play the lead role of Jane Eyre (she previously appeared at the National Theatre in Alistair McDowell’s sell-out production of Pomona) with Tim Delap making his National Theatre debut as Rochester.
Director Sally Cookson, said about her production of Jane Eyre: ‘Adapting a novel for the stage is a challenging prospect – especially when that novel is cited as many people’s favourite of all time. It is always daunting when you’re working on a story which everyone knows so well, because you want to surprise and maybe challenge people’s expectations, without losing any of the things which make them like the story in the first place.’
http://www.edtheatres.com/janeeyre
Monday 5 – Saturday 10 May 2017 at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh
Photos – Manuel Harlan
