Bronte
Tue 5 Apr 2011 – Sat 30 Apr 2011
by Polly Teale
A Shared Experience/Watermill Theatre production
co-produced by Oxford Playhouse
‘Using physicality, lighting, ambient music, above all a sense of the mysterious allied to propulsive storytelling, they create a vivid theatrical landscape that creates a rare sense of intimacy. …this evocative show is full of ideas, full of life’
It is 1845. Branwell Bronte returns home in disgrace. Plagued by alcohol and drug addiction, he has been dismissed from domestic service following an affair with the mistress of the house.
As their brother descends into alcoholism and insanity, bringing chaos to the household, the sisters write… BRONTË beautifully evokes the real and imagined worlds of the Brontës, in a production in which their fictional characters come to haunt their creators.
Directed by Nancy Meckler and written by Polly Teale, whose previous plays for Shared Experience include the highly-acclaimed Speechless, Jane Eyre and After Mrs Rochester.
Cast includes Kristin Atherton, Elizabeth Crarer, Mark Edel-Hunt, Stephen Finegold, Frances McNamee and Flora Nicholson.
Creatives include Nancy Meckler (Director), Ruth Sutcliffe (Designer), Chahine Yavroyan (Lighting Designer) and Peter Salem (Composer and Sound Designer).
‘A transcendentally beautiful evening.’
‘Perfectly and passionately pitched.’
‘Far removed from the clichés of period drama…the characters are explored in a manner that pulses with poetic feeling’