The Crazy, Mixed-Up Brontes
Snooping into the private lives of
famous people, both dead and alive, is an activity enjoyed by many. And in a
parsonage on a lonely Yorkshire moor Noel Robinson has found a real treasure
trove of crazy, mixed-up people for her first stage play Glasstown.
The play, which opened at Watford
Palace Theatre on Monday, covers a year in the life of the Bronte family -
Charlotte, Emily, Anne, brother Branwell and their father, Patrick. Miss
Robinson has written a compelling play which proves emotionally draining for
both actors and audience.
She also avoids the pitfall which
trips many biography writers of sacrificing characterisation in order to
cram as many facts as possible into the script. If, like me, you can never
remember which sister wrote Wuthering Heights and which one Jane Eyre then Glasstown won’t help you. It’s not that sort of play. It merely makes known
facts about the complex, closely-knit family and weaves around them a drama
of great power and emotion.
In terms of action nothing much
happens and we leave the Brontes in 1846 just after the publication of the
sisters’ first book of poems. Miss Robinson traces the emotional turmoil
which drives the sisters to pour out their pain and unhappiness into their
novels.
It is, I suppose, an old-fashioned
play dealing in characters and emotions instead of flashy gimmicks. But that
is nothing of which to be ashamed and Frith Banbury’s direction builds up to
some fine climaxes.
Eventually the play boils down to a
duel between brother and sister - Branwell and Charlotte. Both Anne
Stallybrass and Robert Powell give superb performances, ones to be seen at
all costs.
Miss Stallybrass, too often
confined to cardboard soap opera series, has a peach of a part as Charlotte,
the plain Jane, and copes admirably with the many changes of mood. In the
end she dominates the play, as she did the Bronte family in real life.
That is not to underestimate the
considerable contribution from Robert Powell giving, I suspect, his best
performance to date as Branwell, the brother who lives in a dream world.
Outwardly the brash bragger but inside a hopelessly lost soul who sees the
world through a haze of gin and opium.
Angela Down as the ice-cool Emily
and Vicky Ireland as mousey Anne have less to do, but their portraits serve
to emphasise their reliance on their authoritative elder sister.
John Robinson, John Rowe and Daphne
Heard lend valuable support too.
©
Watford Observer
8 June 1973
Glasstown