The 70-minute send-up becomes a series of opposing forces: A brother combating his sisters, love versus jealousy, truth pitted against lies, mind games alternating with reality and oblivion fighting celebrity.And at another Fringe, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Edinburgh, mrbrianlogan tweeted this:
It's a story that stretches more than a few notches above the usual risqué bump and grind. In fact it's a super pseudo-intellectual exercise – a dark, surreal epic that is delightfully heighted by a Harry Potter-like moving portrait of the quartet.
But as a burlesque it fails to deliver. Whether by design or evolution, the script lacks the lighthearted, ribald jokes so characteristic of this genre.
And while the actresses perform a striptease down to their lacy skivvies, they don't go far enough in titillating and teasing the audience. As a matter of fact, they all looked a bit awkward.
Perhaps it was opening night jitters. Perhaps it was the small stage that restricted their movements. Hopefully as the run progresses, the production's shine comes through. (Anna Borowiecki)
Sublime Fringe moment no1006: a ridiculous/gorgeous puppet take on Kate Bush Wuthering Heights in Boris & Sergei Vaudevillian Adventure.At the same Fringe, Act One's Wuthering Heights adaptation is reviewed (rather negatively) by Tychy.
Slant Magazine lists the 20 most anticipated fall films (in the US). Including Wuthering Heights 2011:
The latest adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic went through multiple talent swaps in front of and behind the camera, with Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman first chosen as the leads, and Peter Webber on board as director. The project finally fell into the lap of Fish Tank helmer Andrea Arnold, who decided on Kaya Scodelario and James Howson to play Cathy and Heathcliff. Though Brontë's text describes Heathcliff as "a dark-skinned gypsy," Howson's portrayal will mark the first time a black actor has played the role on screen. (R. Kurt Osenlund)Victorians and Edwardians and The Film (B)log post about the film.
The Moors Murders (1963-65) are again in the news and The Times runs an article about it. And the Brontës' moors are mentioned:
And all that is darkest and most disturbing in the novels of the Brontë sisters takes place on heath and heather-covered windswept hills. Jane Eyre almost perishes on the moors after she flees the bigamist Mr Rochester. Say “Wuthering Heights” even to someone who has never read Emily Brontë’s masterpiece and they will immediately think of high wind and heavy rain on the moorlands behind Haworth Parsonage. In fact, those who know moorland landscapes think of them rather differently. It is unreasonable to hope that the concluding words of Wuthering Heights will be of much consolation or comfort to Winnie Johnson, but Brontë does have something to contribute to our whole feeling about the tragedy: “I lingered under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for sleepers in that quiet earth.” (Roy Hattersley)Financial Times describes Scotland's Flow Country as follows:
Bogs have never fared well in the popular imagination: phrases such as “bog standard”, “wet blanket” and “wallow in the mire” say it all. Certainly the moody ambience in Scotland’s Flow Country, the world’s largest remaining blanket bog, can make Yorkshire’s Brontë country seem positively cheery. But there’s also poetry in peat. (Hugh Graham)Andrew Motion in the New York Times' Sunday Book Review talks about the art of the sequel:
A similar kind of ingenuity — although less flashily done — appears in “Wide Sargasso Sea,” in which Jean Rhys imagines the life of the first Mrs. Rochester in “Jane Eyre.” In the novel’s luscious yet brilliantly well-organized prose, the “mad woman in the attic” is given a background, a life, a love and a tragedy that make it impossible for anyone who’s read it to think in the same way again about her husband in his subsequent Brontë-life. That’s quite an achievement. Rhys actually manages to enrich a book commonly agreed to be a masterpiece before she went anywhere near it.The Guardian's Observer Organic Allotment Blog closes its last post with these words:
We walk home together over the heath, with a basket of beans, flowers and late summer salad, rested and madly happy. Have a good weekend everyone. I leave you with Charlotte Brontë:Washington Post reviews The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin:But, there are hours of lonely musing,Such as in evening silence come,When, soft as birds their pinions closing,The heart's best feelings gather home. (Allan Jenkins)
Working alone in the orchard she and Talmadge had nurtured together, immersed in physical labor that extinguishes thought, she feels “a depth of kinship with the earth . . . unshakable, rife with compassion.” Angelene’s final epiphany equals in stark grandeur similar scenes in Emily Brontë’s“Wuthering Heights” and Pat Barker’s “Another World” — heady company for a first novelist, but Coplin’s talent merits such comparisons. (Wendy Smith)The Daily Mail interviews Dwina Gibb about the last days of her husband, Bee Gee's Robin Gibb:
He never gave the impression he wasn’t going to make a full recovery or that this was going to be the final curtain. We’d watch films together: Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black, which he loved, Jane Eyre, the Marx Brothers. It’s such a final parting and he was so brave to the end. (David Wigg)The Independent chooses the 50 best homes and gardens in England. Haddon Hall is among them:
Parts of Haddon Hall in Bakewell, Derbyshire, date back to the 12th century, and when the 9th Duchess of Rutland arrived here in the early 20th century she overhauled the gardens into their current romantic splendour – it's only a shame just two of the rose terraces are open. Three versions of Jane Eyre, as well as Elizabeth, Pride & Prejudice and The Other Boleyn Girl have used Haddon as a location. (Sophie Morris)The Sydney Morning Herald interviews the author Chloe Hooper:
''I do love all those Gothic classics - Jane Eyre, Rebecca, The Castle of Otranto, those stories of women trapped in big houses.''The Australian reviews E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey:
This last issue is fairly easy: the prose is banal, repetitive and laden with cliches. Think of Wuthering Heights without the gothic turmoil or Tess of the D'Urbervilles without the humanity. James knows her English literary canon: the virgin "taken" by a dark chap (aka Alec D'Urberville who makes of Tess "a maiden no more"), or the quest to tame a wild and complex character (Heathcliff). (Louise Adler)
KPBS's Culture Lust interviews Todd Blakesley, participant in the first Liars Contest organised by the TwainFest:
I pick up one bottle that looks like a bargain, and Blakesley delves deeper into snake-oil-salesman mode. "Here we have all three Brontë sisters in one bottle." Taken in, I ask surprisingly, "In one bottle?" Blakesley, emboldened, confirms: "Yup, in one bottle. It’s triple strength." (Angela Carone)Cesena Today (Italy) recommends summer readings:
Alla libreria Giunti consigliano "Un uso qualunque di te" di Sara Rattaro, ma vanno forte anche i classici intramontabili come Dickens, Brontë e per i più temerari anche Dostoevkij nonostante non sia una lettura leggera. (Alessandro Mazzo) (Translation)An alert from Austin, TX, afternoon tea with Jane Eyre 2011:
Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar1120 South Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TXThe Briarfield Chronicles has written another thought-provoking Brontë-related post: How Charlotte Brontë revolutionised Gothic literature; cinjoella reviews The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle; Woodsong Notes compares Jane Eyre and Shirley; Resistance is Futile briefly posts about Agnes Grey; La Bouteille à la Mer (in French) reviews Jane Eyre 2006 and La Petite Serievore and PassionS by SJ (in French) posts about Jane Eyre 2011; Finding the Write Way reviews A Breath of Eyre; Kayla the Bookworm reviews April Lindner's Jane.
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