Cathy Marston, now director and head choreographer of Ballett Zürich, is known for her interpretation of great literature and stories of eminent figures into narrative ballets. I’ve seen a few—Victoria, The Suit, Snowblind, The Cellist—in which her penchant is for animating the inanimate or creating imaginary conceptual figures from the subconscious of the lead protagonist.
Nobody does it as well as she: it beguiles. I hear people saying after tonight’s Jane Eyre, "what were those D-Men about?" Not hard to work out if you vocalise it—demons in Jane’s troubled life and psyche who surround her, light her way to bed, lift and carry her, pad out the choreography.
There is also a prologue, in which she is chased by men… men not altogether positive figures in her Victorian life. Though her aunt, Mrs Reed, is not entirely a benevolent personage either. If you’ve never read Charlotte Brontë’s novel or have forgotten its details, there is a synopsis in the programme.
To cut to the chase, after her horrible times with her aunt, then in the orphanage, where her best friend dies of consumption, she ends up in Thornfield Hall as governess to Adele (a lovely bouncy Julie Nunès), ward of the mysterious and intimidating Mr Rochester. And here is where the Romantic, even Gothic, novel takes off. Isn’t it love stories with their obstacles that we love... will they, won’t they?
Seeing this production with a different cast to the one in 2018, I am struck how much the casting impacts on the characterisation, which is very good from the choreographic point of view. Joseph Taylor, a gorgeous dancer with not a sullen bone in his body, brings out the needy, lonely, kind soul under his lord and master of the grand house arrogance and moody severity. One can see why Jane falls under his spell. Their duets are the best thing in the show.
Jane is not gullible, she is her own woman, but Sarah Chun with her semaphore arms is thrown into turmoil. Is that a doppelganger for her—or is that her younger self (Rachael Gillespie)? I’m not sure, as I’m sitting too far away to see detail or facial expressions (last time I was much closer and hence more involved). Marston makes her point at curtain call when Jane steps away from the blind Rochester and takes a solo bow. She will be in charge now. But then, a determined soul, she’s always had to look after herself.
Rochester almost makes a bigamist marriage with Jane, only to have it disrupted by his mad wife escaped from her attic prison, Bertha (Gemma Coutts), here attired in red to signify the fires she starts, the final one killing her and physically damaging Rochester. Marston brings her on for the wedding scene. An economy of storytelling.
Housekeeper Mrs Fairfax is the most delightful of characters as danced and played by Heather Lehan, with her quirky turns and steps. I can see her in Yorkshire. Thank goodness for some light relief in a story of abuse and poverty, with a sort of happy ending.
Beautifully staged, Patrick Kinmouth’s moors background set (and scenario) looks John Nash inspired, his costume designs, and economical sliding set flats and scrim, are perfect. Alastair West’s sepia lighting completes the period setting.
Philip Feeney—with whom Marston has worked on all the above-mentioned shows and more—has appropriately composed a cinematic score that has ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ about it, which carries the story along on its gossamer wings. And we have a live orchestra, conducted by Daniel Parkinson in the pit—a treat.
I sit wondering why Marston hasn't done Wuthering Heights, but she has, I read later, for Bern Ballett, where she was director 2007–2013. Now that I’d like to see... At a girl’s school ‘up north’, at impressionable ages, many of us were more inclined towards that than Jane Eyre. The spell of the Brontë sisters lingers still.