Two seasons ago the Wellesley Summer Theatre, the professional troupe resident at Wellesley College--where in now performs from the beginning to the end of the second semester--took home a handful of IRNE's for Polly Teale's "After Mrs. Rochester." which incorporates a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's novel, "Jane Eyre" written by Jean Rhys They'd previously done this British playwright's adaptation of "Jane Eyre" itself. Now director Nora Hussey has mounted Teale's imaginative bio-drama, "Bronte" based on the lives of three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Ann, each of whom published novels in the mid-19th century, and their dissolute brother Branwell.
An ensemble of eight chronicles the life--and passing--of this remarkable clan, tucked away on the bleak Yorkshire moors, who produced remarkably passionate and poetic fiction. Veteran local actor John Davin returns to play the Rev. Patrick Bronte (nee Brunty), their father, who came from Ireland but graduated from Cambridge. Alicia Kahn, one of the founders of WST and now working in Ohio, plays Charlotte, the oldest, best known for "Jane Eyre." Wellesley grad Catherine LeClair, now working in NY after six years performing in Bangor ME, plays reclusive Emily, whose only published novel "Wuthering Heights" is the most compelling of the lot. Wellesley senior Kelly Galvin, a WST veteran appears as Anne, whose sentimental works, "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Windfell" have been overshadowed by her sisters' more dramatic creations. Up and coming local leading man, Greg Raposa, joins the troupe as pampered Branwell, equally imaginative but flighty, whose major legacy is a rather crude portrait of his sisters which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. He also plays "Heathcliff", one of the characters drawn from novels who flesh out this drama.
Kahn, who played both Jane Eyre and the young Jean Rhys in WST's previous productions reprises her role as Jane, as a figure of Charlotte's imagination. Melinda McGrew, whose worked with the company since 2001 and just completed her MFA at the New School, reprises her role of Bertha, the first Mrs. Rochester, seen in both "Jane Eyre" and "After Mrs. Rochester", and also plays creates Cathy from "Wuthering Heights." Derek Stone Nelson, another WST regular seen in both previous plays reappears as Mr. Rochester and as Msr. Heger, a French schoolmaster who inspires Charlotte to develop her innate writing skills. Finally, Dan Barton, plays Rev. Bronte's curate, Arthur Bell Nichols, who eventually marries Charlotte. Teale's script fuses the grim realities of the Brontes' isolated life with the results of their imagination to create an intense drama. Kahn, LeClair, and Galvin plumb the depths of the intense inner lives of the three sisters, each different yet bonded. The entire cast handles their accents well, from the Bronte's Irish brogues tempered by their Yorkshire lives to Nelson's French accent as Heger and plummy tone as Rochester.
Company designer Ken Loewit has once again created a flexible unit set in the RNJ black box space. Three windows hang behind a low platform with a flagstone floor. Below them, plain wood window seats hold most of the props and costumes for the play, one for each sister. A coatrack, a doorframe, and a fireplace frame fill in stage left, while a few wooden chais and two small tables downs stage littered with papers complete the set. Lighting is subtle and direct, the cyc behind changing with shows moods. As usual, the period costumes designed by Nancy Stevenson are accurate in style and tone. BC's George Cooke provides an appropriate sound design which doesn't intrude. The economy and style of WST's productions continues.
The author's complete timeline for the lives of the Bronte's is included in the program and bears looking at, either before or after the play. It provides a context for a family isolated as they were, in the middle of the 19th century, This company remains a model of how a professional theatre contribute to the wider academic scene without becoming stodgy, overly expensive, or insistently innovative.