Pure Adaptation

I wish you did not think of me as a woman," said Charlotte Bronte to critics, when it was revealed that she authored Jane Eyre under a male pseudonym, Currer Bell. "Now, you will keep measuring me by some standard of what you deem to be becoming in a woman." This emotion is all over as one leafs through Bronte’s Jane Eyre. "And in its stage enactment by the Shared Experience Theatre," claims the British group’s associate director Polly Teale about the musical.

"The power of a novel is the intimacy the reader developes with its characters. A characteristic seldom found in adapted versions — very few can go beyond the surface of the names, deep into their sentimentality and memories. Our Jane Eyre is one of them," challenges Teale, who gave every other adaptation a miss so that she wasn’t influenced.

The Shared Experience Theatre’s Jane Eyre, at Jameshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA. On Jan 28 & Jan 29. Time: 7.00 pm.