Review: A Noise Within’s ‘Jane Eyre’ Is Willfully Poetic & Poignant

A Noise Within’s production of Jane Eyre has proven to be a play worthy of the wait, its very first performance in front of a live audience transpiring on Thursday, April 3rd, after the cancellation of its opening weekend due to the health issues of a cast member. Directed with astute precision by Geoff Elliott, the narrative, which is among the most famous in the world — based as it is on Charlotte Brontë’s 178-year-old masterwork and admirably adapted by Elizabeth Williamson — is one that builds suspensefully, bound by a push-pull romance amid a stylishly gloomy Yorkshire, England backdrop in 1819-20.

The story begins innocuously: Jane Eyre, only 18 years of age, and just having finished eight years at Lowood, a school for destitute, orphaned girls, takes a job as governess to French adolescent Adele, who is the ward of the affluent and enigmatic Mr. Edward Rochester, owner of Thornfield Hall. After being given a tour of the gothic Victorian manor by housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, notwithstanding a room from which peculiar noises emanate on the third floor, Jane goes for a walk where she abruptly hears a horse neigh and a man cry out in agony — Mr. Rochester himself — who had just taken a tumble and sprained his ankle.

From the moment Jane lends her shoulder to him, Mr. Rochester fails to be convincingly coy in his patent desire for her; in comparison, while she sees his appeal, Jane is mostly grateful to be among people who appreciate her, a stark contrast to an upbringing, inclusive of a cantankerous aunt by marriage, that was bereft of friends and family. Through these tribulations, we also see a willful voice and agentic independence develop in spite of gendered and classist expectations of especially that period. As Jane and Rochester’s romance escalates, so does, however, the recurrence of a seeming apparition at the Thornfield residence which has highly destructive tendencies — first attempting arson, then a murder by stabbing — as revelatory plot points are brought unto the surface.

Equal parts romance, horror, and coming-of-age, Elliott draws out the crescendos of the play and its constituent characters to maximal effect — both their individual import and significance to each other. The disparate motivations are made clear, allowing the audience to identify with several perspectives, each of which is justifiable from the lens of their lived experiences. With a pacing that rewards the viewer as much as the book does, those particularly familiar with the lore will find their attention whetted as the mysteries and loose ends are tied gratifyingly by the show’s end. And with the conspicuously audible effects of dialect coach Andrea Odinov on display via the subtle differences in performers’ accents, there is an homage to history that co-exists with the aim to entertain.

Certainly, Jane Eyre wouldn’t resound as unflinchingly, empoweringly, and beautifully as it does without the craftsmanship of Jeanne Syquia and Frederick Stuart who portray the protagonists Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. There is a steeliness, born out of accumulated values and ethics, that girds Syquia’s Eyre even when she would love nothing more than to reciprocate Mr. Rochester’s affection like in the form of a marriage proposal. (The monologue that Syquia delivers during this scene, with chest-beating affirmation, is an exclamatory peak of the play.) Syquia, acting as the overall narrator of her character’s journey, etches the odyssey of a maiden who grows out of any perceived victimhood to find a kind but empowered voice.

Syquia is matched in blithe and fervent spirit by A Noise Within resident headliner and statesman of the stage, Stuart, who sharply conveys his persona’s plight and aspiration to bridge the gap between his life’s station and Jane’s, who had hitherto called him “master” with gratitude and without hesitation. Stuart, as he has succeeded in previous roles, is tremendous at emoting with a humanity so undeniable that it cannot be overlooked nor unrequited for long; in fact, he is so sincere that his character’s pleadings never register as unilaterally desperate but rather as an action toward a just inevitability.

Six additional actors occupy the stage, making an impact so great that it belies their small number due to taking on double, triple, and sometimes quadruple role duty — each character realized to its fullest potential. For example, resident artist Deborah Strang pristinely balances the affable and humble Mrs. Fairfax with the elitist Lady Ingram and the black-hearted Mrs. Reed of Gateshead, who perseveres in her irrational ill will toward Jane, in sickness and in health, going so far as to even break her promise to her husband (Jane’s biological uncle) to care for her like one of her own.

Strang is joined by resident peer Trisha Miller who immerses herself into the curiously quiet Thornfield servant Grace Poole, suspected to be more than just a harmless employee, along with the haughty and status-motivated Blanche Ingram (daughter to Lady Ingram) who becomes engaged to the unmoved Rochester, as well as Bessie, the congenial housekeeper at Gateshead. From provoking intrigue to laughter and acceptance, Miller elicits a spectrum of emotions.

Riley Shanahan cogently adapts his voice and posture as appropriate to the mysterious traveler Mr. Richard Mason, of the West Indies, who ostensibly shares a past with Rochester, alongside the oppressive-cousin-to-Jane, John Reed, and the well-meaning clergyman St. John Rivers whose reputation gets called into question when he asks something of Jane that viscerally disagrees with the nature of their relationship.

California School of the Arts-Acting Conservatory student Stella Bullock skillfully inhabits both the buoyant Adele and the beleaguered Young Jane in a top-of-Act-II flashback sequence that highlights how, more than just being spurned by those who should have been loyal and loving, Jane was practically tortured, specifically by being banished to the abandoned Red Room which agonizingly tested her grit; however, rather than being destroyed by it, Jane discovers her worth via an oath to herself to disassociate from individuals who have treated her awfully.

Bert Emmett effectively multitasks as the Priest whose proceedings are suddenly interrupted, the unassuming John (a Thornfield servant), and Dr. Carter who is brought in to examine the overnight flesh wounds befalling a character staying the night at Rochester’s estate.

Julia Manis similarly gives underrated turns as the complaisant Leah (another Thornfield servant), the snobbish Mary Ingram, the charitable Diana Rivers (sister to St. John Rivers) who helps attend to a collapsed Jane, and the incorrigible, fear-invoking Bertha.

Doing their due diligence to transport the audience back to the pages thoughtfully written by Brontë are the technical crew. Frederica Nascimento’s spaciously recessed scenic design gives Thornfield Hall an expanse of perspective that the humble Jane is absorbed into amidst shocking but difficult-to-pinpoint happenings; Angela Balogh Calin’s costumes, in tandem with Tony Valdes’s wig and makeup, capture the conservative dress, symbolic of levels of class, characterizing the epoch; Ken Booth’s lighting practices temperance as a means to communicate an atmosphere colored by darkness but resisted by the candlelight of hope; and, Robert Oriol’s sound underscores the trajectory of drama and terror, alternating between sedate and stentorian.

Beset by tragedy as Charlotte Brontë was, dying far too young like her siblings (among whom were the renowned Emily and Anne), she has nonetheless bequeathed an indelible and inviolable legacy. It is entwined with a semi-autobiographical young woman in Jane Eyre who bucks damsel-in-distress stereotypes to rise above her piteous beginnings and claim her will to answer, liberated from the demands of her era and other people, the questions and crucibles confronting her. Be it her choice to marry, move on, or return to her past, Jane follows the call of her own voice — a motif that is meaningfully reinforced by A Noise Within’s rendering, making the two-and-a-half hours of developments all the more satisfying to witness.

Cover image caption: Jeanne Syquia and Frederick Stuart in A Noise Within’s production of Jane Eyre in Pasadena, CA. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

A Noise Within’s production of Jane Eyre runs through Sunday, April 20th. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit anoisewithin.org.