A local composer, Jay Richards, turned the novel Jane Eyre into a musical. It's still playing in Logan at the Ellen Eccles Theatre, and I'm one of the lucky people who saw the production on its maiden run.
It touched me in more ways than it would have when I read the book at 12. (Actually, I read the book until I reached the wedding scene. As a 12-year-old I was too upset to finish it, so the story remained half-read until several years ago, when I figured I could handle the rest.)
One of the true surprises in the musical was how much humor Charlotte Bronte had injected into the novel--lines I recognized from the book. I missed the laughs first time around because the language got in the way.
For those of you who might be deciding whether to go see Jane Eyre, I'll say it was a good production with excellent singing. Everything about it was solid and some moments absolutely sparkled. I would love to see what a theater company with some real cash could do with it. But the real thoughts I had on it kept going back to the story as Charlotte Bronte wrote it, and why it still resonates so much. There are bits of Jane Eyre in other stories. She's like a female Dickens character who turns up later as Fraulien Maria in The Sound of Music.
But Jane impresses me a lot more than Maria, even if she is fictional and predates Maria by a hundred years or so. The reason I love Jane is that she is poor and not particularly pretty. She has almost none of the power that a traditional heroine possesses, yet in spite of her weakness--or perhaps because of it--she manages to direct her own life. She meets people who use their religious authority like a weapon, and marches on past them without losing her faith. She meets a rich, fascinating man who tries hard to make her abandon her own sense of right and wrong, and she chooses her conscience over love. If the story doesn't end perfectly, it at least ends in a way that makes her happy.
That's what I love about Jane. She's a pragmatist who makes the most of the hand she's given. After everything that happens to her, she ends the story with even more quiet strength than she had when she started. I know a lot of women who want to be like Jane.
That's why you should see the musical--or at least read the book. Or read it again. It's going back on my to-read pile.
It touched me in more ways than it would have when I read the book at 12. (Actually, I read the book until I reached the wedding scene. As a 12-year-old I was too upset to finish it, so the story remained half-read until several years ago, when I figured I could handle the rest.)
One of the true surprises in the musical was how much humor Charlotte Bronte had injected into the novel--lines I recognized from the book. I missed the laughs first time around because the language got in the way.
For those of you who might be deciding whether to go see Jane Eyre, I'll say it was a good production with excellent singing. Everything about it was solid and some moments absolutely sparkled. I would love to see what a theater company with some real cash could do with it. But the real thoughts I had on it kept going back to the story as Charlotte Bronte wrote it, and why it still resonates so much. There are bits of Jane Eyre in other stories. She's like a female Dickens character who turns up later as Fraulien Maria in The Sound of Music.
But Jane impresses me a lot more than Maria, even if she is fictional and predates Maria by a hundred years or so. The reason I love Jane is that she is poor and not particularly pretty. She has almost none of the power that a traditional heroine possesses, yet in spite of her weakness--or perhaps because of it--she manages to direct her own life. She meets people who use their religious authority like a weapon, and marches on past them without losing her faith. She meets a rich, fascinating man who tries hard to make her abandon her own sense of right and wrong, and she chooses her conscience over love. If the story doesn't end perfectly, it at least ends in a way that makes her happy.
That's what I love about Jane. She's a pragmatist who makes the most of the hand she's given. After everything that happens to her, she ends the story with even more quiet strength than she had when she started. I know a lot of women who want to be like Jane.
That's why you should see the musical--or at least read the book. Or read it again. It's going back on my to-read pile.
Thanks for articulating exactly why Jane Eyre is my all time favorite book ever written! I've read it so many times and watched all of the movies ever made about it...didn't get to see the musical, though. Will probably read it a dozen more times before I die.
ReplyDeleteConnie, I am late thanking you for your comment. I can't believe that in all the time we've talked, we never discussed this book!
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