Last night I took myself to see the musical version of Jane Eyre put on by Seattle Musical Theatre. I'd heard of it before, but a few weeks ago I was struck with another bout of insomnia and what else do you do when you can't sleep at 1am but buy musicals off Amazon.com? I was actually hoping to find something in a similar vein with The Secret Garden and I guess I hoped that another musical based on a book set in England way back when would do. The first time I listened to it, I was alternately bored and deeply annoyed. A few more listens and it started to grow on me. In my opinion there's plenty of room for improvement in both musical/lyrical execution (sorry, that sounded snobby, but I promise I'm not smart enough to be a real snob). You can hear in the music when they were trying to hard and it gets a little clumsy. I think it would have benefited from a more delicate touch? They definitely edited down the story but didn't seem to want to do that with some of the music, particularly lyrics. It's a very wordy book, I'll grant you, and even though the story of Jane Eyre can be quite melodramatic, it seems that certain musical moments could have done with some restraint. I will say I really enjoyed playing "Guess the Musical" and finding which portions sounded just like other plays. There were snippets of Into the Woods, Wicked, The Secret Garden, and an incredibly hilarious parallel -- we'll say "parallel" rather than "rip-off" -- with Anastasia the animated musical at the end of the number "Sweet Liberty" ("at laaaaaaast!"). Even that just made me more fond of it, oddly. So I finally decided, "What the heck, I'll give it a whirl."
It was an admirable production in many ways, and definitely a fun way to spend my evening. I quite enjoyed it and I'd be interested to see how it would go with a full orchestra and more resources. It must be hard to condense such a long book, and one that is from Jane's perspective and so includes much inner thought and observation versus action. They did a decent job of hitting the high and low points: school for orphaned girls, Thornfield, scowly yet charismatic leading man, crazy lady in the attic, etc etc. And while I know they needed to detail Jane's growth towards strength, forgiveness and faith and her relationship with Rochester, it seems like they skimmed over the harshness of her childhood and her distress while wandering alone after she leaves Thornfield. I mean, those are major traumas! But her childhood was just her cousin tearing a few pages out of a book and her aunt scolding her once and that's about it. And her desolate wandering lasted about a minute and a half and consisted of her kneeling on the ground while the chorus of spirits (hey there, Secret Garden, how ya doin'?) who act as the spokespeople of her inner thoughts said "I cried a lot and I was hungry and it SUCKED" (I'm just a fan of show, not tell, especially in a play, which by its nature is largely about showing). It seems to me that her turmoil and sadness and, consequently her eventual happiness, would have had a lot more meaning if she actually appeared to suffer deeply in her life. Oh well--again, it's a damn long book and they needed time to sing, I guess.
Song-wise, I was pleased by the addition of a number of in-between, move-it-along songs. The cast album I have is a single disc and one thing that bothered me about it was how uneven it seemed--in terms of plot timing they'd have a number of songs crammed together, then skip important story lines and then have a song that seemed overly long for how small it's plot point was. The full show evened it out nicely. And seeing it performed live made me reconsider and even enjoy songs that bug me on the CD--that's why I love going to musicals, you may know the music backwards and forwards, but when you see it performed by actors in character on a stage it takes on an utterly new life.
Casting-wise they did a pretty decent job. Jane Eyre had a wonderful voice, youthful but strong and very clear--I was thoroughly blown away by her opening number in act two, it was the first time her acting really moved me. The little girls who played Jane and Helen were excellent, I wanted to hug them both and I was quite impressed with Helen, who had her own song and managed it nicely. A few cast members were a little shaky on their pitches, particularly the man who was a chorus member/Mr. Mason, he was consistently under pitch and I think he might be the reason that when the chorus performed segments of harmony it was naggingly off. And they seemed to agree amongst themselves that belting it out was always the right way to go, no matter what the mood was supposed to be, bless their hearts.
But lets get down to the important part: Mr. Rochester. He was definitely the best part of the show. He seems to be from the fist-making school of passion. I don't know, maybe it's a 19th century man thing, but I've never really made a fist to display my distress and high emotion. He was actually quite charismatic; and while he could have stood to be a bit more scowly and mercurial at times, I give him a solid and enthusiastic thumbs up. I want to see him in more plays. And what of his voice? Let's just say that I want to have his voice's babies. Sing to me Edward, sing loud.
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