The difference between a poor ballet of the book (see the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein) and a good one — indeed two — was cheeringly pointed up by Northern Ballet last week, when it unveiled an intensely imagined new Jane Eyre in Doncaster and gave the London première of the efficiently menacing 1984 that I reviewed last autumn.
It wasn’t really a surprise that Cathy Marston had a triumph with the Brontë —Royal Ballet-raised but Europe-bred, the choreographer has gradually developed a knack for character empathy and, crucially, a gift for externalising inner feelings in a vividly legible way. So although Jane Eyre is such a literary story, with every emotional step of the heroine so painstakingly explained by its author, Marston has danced lightly through the details, compressing it into a chamber ballet, albeit full-length.
It’s given a sketchy, suggestive design by Patrick Kinmonth, with translucent grey cloths marked with charcoal lines, like tissue drawings of woods or rooms, though the costumes are wishy-washy (I don’t believe that Blanche Ingram is the type of woman who would wear tired raspberry). Lit by Alastair West, who creates some excellent fiery effects, the story emerges with a visually dynamic underpinning.
There is also an apt and emotive score by Philip Feeney for Northern Ballet’s lively small orchestra, which incorporates heartwrenching movements from the chamber music and songs of Schubert and Mendelssohn (Felix and Fanny), all of which anchor the sentimental temperature in Brontë’s period. This crucial piece of good artistic judgment by Marston means that we register Jane’s choices and feelings within that era’s context, and even though her choreography is written in the whole-body moves of European modern ballet (much more flex in necks and upper torsos than classical ballet), the eloquence is directed towards hidden or suppressed or evasive feelings too.
And this makes the difference between a choreographer spelling out a story and one who aims to speak through character, so that the plot is the result of their individual natures in action and reaction.
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