Soskin does justice to Jane Eyre
by HEATHER SOLOMON
Gabrielle Soskin came halfway around the world to direct Jane Eyre. When her husband took a contract job in Hong Kong and asked her to join him for a year, Soskin was in a quandary.
She solved it by quitting her own job of 27 years teaching theatre at John Abbott College. Then she temporarily delegated the running of her Persephone Theatre Company, which she founded in 2000, to a triumvirate of colleagues. She returned to Montreal only for a week of casting, a month of rehearsals and the run itself.
"Knowing how hard it is to keep these companies going and how one would lose momentum if one stopped, I thought it was a good decision," she says of rallying the troupe that brought us the exquisite Kindertransport last season.
Soskin is right, because Persephone continues apace, with a production powered by her strong direction, fine acting and Charlotte Bronte's beautiful language, adapted by Polly Teale for the stage.
On until May 8 at Théâtre La Chapelle, 3700 St. Dominique St., Jane Eyre is proof of the old adage that less is more. From the outset, the audience's curiosity is piqued by a stark cube standing upstage. On its flank is a fabric swag, at one end is a freestanding door and, in the middle, is one chair. How will this rich tale be threaded through multiple environments of foster home, boarding school, and the forbidding manor house where Jane meets Mr. Rochester? Not to worry. Soskin has the imagination to embroider them all into the mind's eye with a cinematic fluidity that keeps pace with her seamless quilting of scenes. Though satisfyingly faithful to the book, Teale has taken a liberty with the action that works brilliantly: she partners Jane with Rochester's secreted wife, Bertha, in a theatrical "three-legged race" of sorts, whereby one physically and emotionally shadows the other.
Jean Nicolai's Jane literally sits in the lap of Glenda Braganza, not as a puppet but in a oneness of spirit. In an era where women, like children, were expected to be seen and not heard, Bertha mirrors the passions repressed by Jane and dares to initiate her flight to freedom, even as Jane endeavours to lock away her own outspokenness and sensuality.
Nicolai simmers as Jane, fighting the social and religious mores of her day to find her place in the world as a straight talking woman of independence. As the run ripens, she will hopefully create chemistry between her and Rochester, which is currently lacking. When Nicolai is with him, she is either the Snow Queen or Anne of Green Gables.
Braganza is the bright flame whose onstage grace and presence dwell in all afterimages of this play. She embraces the mischievous alter ego with the same vibrancy as Bertha's tragic madness and makes both the illusionary woman and the real one sympathetic.
It is a tribute to Brian Wrench as Rochester that he maintains his dignity even riding piggy-back on his Equus-like steed and doesn't let his scene-stealing dog Pilot (character actor Paul Van Dyck) get the better of him.
Van Dyck also makes a wonderful, doddering Lord Ingram, but he lacks missionary fervour as St. John Rivers, with the result of sabotaging Jane's tirade against his definition of love.
It is Rebecca Croll who provides backbone to the play in various supporting roles. From Bertha's tippling, trapped jailer/caregiver Grace Poole to the mature beauty of Blanche, Rochester's bait for Jane's attentions, Croll handles herself with depth and believability. Victoria Barkoff, Stephanie Bretton and Gabriel Brian Lopez round out the cast. It is wonderful to see that almost all the actors and technical staff (Anne Marie Pierre, Marie Andrée Verville, Stephanie Le Riche and Ben Wohl) are recent graduates, of Dawson College's professional theatre department, Concor,dia University's theatre performance specialization, Queen's University's stage and screen section or John Abbott College's professional theatre program.
"That's the mandate of Persephone, to showcase young professionals," Soskin says.
The director and her family, will be back for good this summer, just in time for rehearsals of the September production of Eric Bogosian's SubUrbia, about alienated youth. With her youth-oriented company that plays for all ages, Soskin is a super-hero who counters alienation of the spirit.
Reprinted from The Canadian Jewish News May 6, 2004
Gabrielle Soskin came halfway around the world to direct Jane Eyre. When her husband took a contract job in Hong Kong and asked her to join him for a year, Soskin was in a quandary.
She solved it by quitting her own job of 27 years teaching theatre at John Abbott College. Then she temporarily delegated the running of her Persephone Theatre Company, which she founded in 2000, to a triumvirate of colleagues. She returned to Montreal only for a week of casting, a month of rehearsals and the run itself.
"Knowing how hard it is to keep these companies going and how one would lose momentum if one stopped, I thought it was a good decision," she says of rallying the troupe that brought us the exquisite Kindertransport last season.
Soskin is right, because Persephone continues apace, with a production powered by her strong direction, fine acting and Charlotte Bronte's beautiful language, adapted by Polly Teale for the stage.
On until May 8 at Théâtre La Chapelle, 3700 St. Dominique St., Jane Eyre is proof of the old adage that less is more. From the outset, the audience's curiosity is piqued by a stark cube standing upstage. On its flank is a fabric swag, at one end is a freestanding door and, in the middle, is one chair. How will this rich tale be threaded through multiple environments of foster home, boarding school, and the forbidding manor house where Jane meets Mr. Rochester? Not to worry. Soskin has the imagination to embroider them all into the mind's eye with a cinematic fluidity that keeps pace with her seamless quilting of scenes. Though satisfyingly faithful to the book, Teale has taken a liberty with the action that works brilliantly: she partners Jane with Rochester's secreted wife, Bertha, in a theatrical "three-legged race" of sorts, whereby one physically and emotionally shadows the other.
Jean Nicolai's Jane literally sits in the lap of Glenda Braganza, not as a puppet but in a oneness of spirit. In an era where women, like children, were expected to be seen and not heard, Bertha mirrors the passions repressed by Jane and dares to initiate her flight to freedom, even as Jane endeavours to lock away her own outspokenness and sensuality.
Nicolai simmers as Jane, fighting the social and religious mores of her day to find her place in the world as a straight talking woman of independence. As the run ripens, she will hopefully create chemistry between her and Rochester, which is currently lacking. When Nicolai is with him, she is either the Snow Queen or Anne of Green Gables.
Braganza is the bright flame whose onstage grace and presence dwell in all afterimages of this play. She embraces the mischievous alter ego with the same vibrancy as Bertha's tragic madness and makes both the illusionary woman and the real one sympathetic.
It is a tribute to Brian Wrench as Rochester that he maintains his dignity even riding piggy-back on his Equus-like steed and doesn't let his scene-stealing dog Pilot (character actor Paul Van Dyck) get the better of him.
Van Dyck also makes a wonderful, doddering Lord Ingram, but he lacks missionary fervour as St. John Rivers, with the result of sabotaging Jane's tirade against his definition of love.
It is Rebecca Croll who provides backbone to the play in various supporting roles. From Bertha's tippling, trapped jailer/caregiver Grace Poole to the mature beauty of Blanche, Rochester's bait for Jane's attentions, Croll handles herself with depth and believability. Victoria Barkoff, Stephanie Bretton and Gabriel Brian Lopez round out the cast. It is wonderful to see that almost all the actors and technical staff (Anne Marie Pierre, Marie Andrée Verville, Stephanie Le Riche and Ben Wohl) are recent graduates, of Dawson College's professional theatre department, Concor,dia University's theatre performance specialization, Queen's University's stage and screen section or John Abbott College's professional theatre program.
"That's the mandate of Persephone, to showcase young professionals," Soskin says.
The director and her family, will be back for good this summer, just in time for rehearsals of the September production of Eric Bogosian's SubUrbia, about alienated youth. With her youth-oriented company that plays for all ages, Soskin is a super-hero who counters alienation of the spirit.
Reprinted from The Canadian Jewish News May 6, 2004
