Bronte the Opera
A contemporary gesturing to the 19th century takes place in Katharina Kastening’s Bronte the Opera, showing at Arcola Theatre. Welcome to…
A contemporary gesturing to the 19th century takes place in Katharina Kastening’s Bronte the Opera, showing at Arcola Theatre. Welcome to the black hollows of Wuthering Heights, Haworth. When the lights first go down, the table centre stage starts to glow, whistling begins to invoke the world of the Bronte family. Floating feathers suggest birds chirping and dancing. The home is where the three sisters stay — Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Bronte brilliantly performed by Anna Marmion, Grace Nyandoro, and Elena Garrido Madrona. Together, they look after their blind religious Father (Martin Lamb), who has placed the weight of the family on his only son, Branwell — an unpunctual, rude, drunk performed by Alex White.
Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wild Fell, and Jane Eyre significantly influenced feminist literature and the suffragette movement in the years to come. Alongside renditions of these novels, we are made to sympathise with the solitude that comes with knowing that to ‘write is to leave behind the miserable body’ of a woman. These explosive words are embodied by the sisters, who from a young age are shown to feel less than Men, less than their Brother who is destined ‘to command the Pirate ship’. Lisa Logan’s theatric composition successfully communicated this feeling. Through magical melodies, we move along the internal musings of the three.
The performance felt comedic at times. From a viewer’s vantage point, you see the levels of deceit reached when hiding their true passions from their Father. Sentiments delicately guided back to your eyes through the body movement of flamenco dancer Magdalena Mannion, dressed in pure white. By using various modes of expression, I believe this performance was able to stay versatile and fluid. I felt spoilt for choice sitting in that audience. The hanging papers that crowned the stage revealed a level of transcendence that the sisters were able to achieve in their lifetime. All through the pen, despite being chained down.
Brontë the Opera
The world premiere of a compelling literary detective story about the turbulent lives of the Brontë sisters - based…www.arcolatheatre.com