Brontë

Overview

It is 1845. Branwell Brontë returns home in disgrace. Plagued by alcohol and drug addiction, he has been dismissed from domestic service following an affair with the mistress of the house.

As their brother descends into alcoholism and insanity, bringing chaos to the household, the sisters write... Brontë beautifully evokes the real and imagined worlds of the Brontës, in a production in which their fictional characters come to haunt their creators.

Directed by Nancy Meckler and written by Polly Teale, whose previous plays for the company include the highly-acclaimed Speechless, Jane Eyre and After Mrs Rochester.

Cast and Creatives

Trailer

Available During March - June 2011

Press Reviews

'Shared Experience are in a league of their own'

★★★★
'Fierce and rhapsodic'

★★★★
'Polly Teale's breathless play puts the lives of the Brontë sisters on stage and offers a brave and transcendentally beautiful evening'

'Succeeds magnificently'

★★★★
'Perfectly and passionately pitched... Polly Teale's densely satisfying play explores all this superbly in an evening that is as much sensed as it is known'

★★★★
'Breathtaking...Riveting...a tantalizing glimpse through the window of a uniquely haunted family home'

★★★★
'A transcendentally beautiful evening'

'soars on the wings of imagination'

'brilliantly conveying how a creative furnace roars within'

'reaches a place of ardent poetic expression'

'draws us pell mell into a world of male Victorian constraint and seething feminine rebellion'

★★★★
'Perfectly and passionately pitched'

'explores all this superbly in an evening that is as much sensed as it is known'

'The more the sister's world narrows the greater their imaginative reach'

'densely satisfying'

Audience Reviews

Isobel Brooks

This lovely play vividly evokes the Brontes' inner lives and the changing world outside the Parsonage, making transitions between the two with a dreamlike grace. A fresh, imaginative and moving take on a much written about subject.

rageoffstage

Seeing this new production from a company of which we are longstanding fans has reminded us just how special they are. They are aptly named - the more we invest, the more richly we are rewarded.

In this production of 'Bronte', we are invited to re-examine, and re-experience, the Bronte myth in all its forms. Classics like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and the clergyman's daughters who wrote them, are already well-known and characters such as Mr. Rochester, Cathy and Heathcliff are archetypes, even for those who have never read the novels. Countless film and TV adaptations have grappled with these novels. Is there anything more to say?

We begin with three actresses in modern dress, strolling onto the stage while the house lights are on, as they sit down and begin reading. We wait as they gradually engage in whispered conversation, in which they contemplate what it must have been like for these Victorian women. As they speak they start to put on the long skirts and button up their blouses. The start is slow, but it is not long before we are completely in their world, conjured up in the form of a single table, chairs, and a box to represent the coal fire. The words and imagination of the actors (and the audience) do the rest.