Multiple Janes in a new and reimagined ‘Jane Eyre’

There had been a handwritten list of favored names, but when the baby first emerged, her grandmother proclaimed, “She’s a Charlotte!”

That’s how playwright Charlotte Northeast got named after Charlotte Brontë, the English author who wrote Jane Eyre.

It’s more than fitting that Northeast, an actor and playwright, should take on the title role, playing Jane in the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective adaptation of Jane Eyre, Brontë's first-person novel that was controversial in 1847 for its views on feminism, class, and religion.

“My book report in fifth grade was on Jane Eyre. The Brontës are very much part of my familial life,” said Northeast, who lives in Collingswood.

What makes the Collective’s Jane Eyre version distinctive is that there are five Janes — Northeast as the main Jane and a chorus of four others.

“When we were looking at other adaptations of the book, we noticed that the plays only focus on the romance between Jane and Rochester. We wanted the focus to be the women in Jane’s life,” Northeast said.

For example, classmate Helen Burns was a friend to Jane Eyre, kind to her at a harsh boarding school where Jane is mistreated. Helen dies of tuberculosis, “so that’s the end of Helen’s arc, but she deeply imprints herself on Jane,” Northeast said. “She brings in faith. She brings in spirituality. She brings in grace. She brings in curiosity, and she brings this lovely quiet acceptance. She embodies all that for Jane Eyre and literally also embodies it as part of the Jane chorus.”

Each of the Janes “brings in threads that assert a piece of [the main Jane’s] psyche,” Northeast explained. “They assess. They protect when needed, or when they feel that Jane is not doing what they want or when she needs help or support.”

As Jane connects with Rochester, a difficult character, “the relationship is evaluated through the eyes of the Janes and everybody has an opinion, because he’s one of the most complex characters in literature.” Northeast worked with three local writers — Jessica Bedford, Kathryn MacMillan, andMeghan Winch — to create this adaptation. This is the same crew that wrote The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged for the theater company Tiny Dynamite.

“We seem to like Janes,” Northeast said with a laugh.

“The name is so lovely and simple, just rolls off the tongue, but it has this lovely gravitas to it,” Northeast said. “There’s something about Jane that inspires confidence.”

This writer couldn’t agree more.

“Jane Eyre,” Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, runs May 11-28, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., Phila. philartistscollective.org.

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