“Dear Reader…”
If you would, allow me but a moment to…Okay, that’s as far as that intro’s going to go. But please do allow me to tell you about Elizabeth Williamson’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre, now playing at the Alley Theatre.
The novel, about the life and times of a young orphan girl, was published under Brontë’s pen name Currer Bell in October 1847, and has since gone on to become a staple of gothic fiction, required reading for lovers of romance, and a stalwart of AP English syllabi.
Williamson’s adaptation opens with an 18-year-old Jane Eyre about to depart Lowood School, her home of the last eight years – six as a pupil and two as a teacher – to begin a new job, that of governess at Thornfield Hall. We quickly learn that, for Jane, Lowood School was a “grim, cruel place,” and that she has no friends or family to speak of. With this in mind, it’s easy to understand Jane when she declares, “I wanted change” – even if that change meant an unknown future at a secluded countryside estate.
Upon arriving at Thornfield, Jane learns from the housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax, that her charge is Adèle, the young, French-speaking ward of the estate’s absentee owner, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane spends three seemingly uneventful months settling into life at Thornfield – uneventful aside from the mysterious, cackling laugh that sometimes echoes from the house’s third story – when Mr. Rochester returns. Though their introduction has all the elements of a meet-cute, Jane describes it as “an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest,” saying only that “it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life.”
Anyway, in short order, Jane saves Mr. Rochester from a fire; Mr. Rochester abruptly leaves and returns with a group of strangers, one of which may soon be his fiancée; Jane is summoned to the bedside of her dying aunt (the very person who sent Jane to Lowood instead of honoring the promise she made to Jane’s uncle to raise her as her own child); and an unexpected visitor arrives from Jamaica and leaves Thornfield mysteriously bitten and bloodied. And that’s just the first act.
Williamson’s play is unfailingly faithful to its source material while being downright breezy in comparison to the 466-page brick that is Brontë’s novel (that’s 466 pages in my 1993 Barnes & Noble hardcover though, of course, copies may vary). The tightness of the script, a delightfully successful distillation of Jane Eyre to its mostly romantic and occasionally spooky core, is a slap of wrongness to the face of anyone who thinks a work of 19th-century Victorian-era literature wouldn’t make for non-stop action or appease a 21st-century attention span. Director Eleanor Holdridge helms the pleasingly dynamic production with ease. Special credit, too, to Williamson, as well as Holdridge and a superbly talented cast, for mining possibly every moment of humor from the story for our viewing pleasure.
Melissa Molano plays our heroine with delicate care and a firm hand, handling every Janian line with an endearing honesty and earnest sincerity. Though Jane begins the story with no family or friends, the audience serves as something of a surrogate companion, as Jane monologues to the audience. Not only does it stay true to the intimacy of the novel’s first-person narration, it allows Molano’s Jane to become a dear friend almost immediately. It is, however, during the explosion of emotion in the second act, Jane’s moonlight mutiny, that Molano most has the audience in the palm of her hand.
Jane Eyre is a romance, and Molano’s chemistry with Chris Hutchison’s gruff Mr. Rochester is captivating. Hutchison manages to deliver each of Mr. Rochester’s blunt and smart-ass comments with a charm that allows you to appreciate their developing relationship without pause.
Aside from Molano and Hutchison, every actor plays two or more roles, slipping in and out of them with chameleon-like ease: There’s Susan Koozin, who goes from kindly housekeeper to attic-bound madwoman with a zombie-like countenance, and the childlike turn Ana Miramontes takes playing two couldn’t-be-more-different young ladies, the excitable Adèle and the beleaguered young Jane. Melissa Pritchett’s dour Grace Poole, which contrasts with the seemingly well-meaning but stifled Bessie.
Then there’s Joy Yvonne Jones, who earns laughs as the shade-throwing Blanche Ingram just as easily as she does with a single “uh uh” uttered as servant Leah. Todd Waite stealing focus, albeit briefly, as John, Colonel Dent and Mr. Wood, and Gabriel Regojo’s rigid St. John Rivers, though he stands out even more as Jane’s bratty cousin John Reed.
Finally, nothing says both Gothic and an English countryside setting like a stormy night – complete with the sound of pelting rain, blinding white flashes of lightning and loud cracks of thunder – which is exactly what audiences walk into when they take their seats in the Hubbard Theatre. The stage is mostly bare, shrouded in shadows with a single, flickering oil lamp set on a desk, but scenic designer John Coyne quickly proves its dexterity. Valérie Thérèse Bart’s serviceable costumes, Alberto Segarra’s moody lighting and Melanie Chen Cole’s rich sound designs, which range from string heavy instrumentals that set the (metaphorical) stage to one particular cacophonous moment that elicits very real chills.
The point, dear reader, is that Williamson and the Alley have mounted a Jane Eyre production that is very nearly perfect, so much so that you won’t need the threat of failing English class to stay awake through it. Instead, the show comes and goes in a most pleasing blink of an eye, something anyone can appreciate, but especially anyone who’s sat down by desire or coercion to read the 466-page book.
Performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through May 5 at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $29-$81.
