AMR Ed Pack - Shared Experiencesharedexperience.org.uk/.../after-mrs-rochester... · AFTER MRS...

THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSAUTHOR OF WIDE SARGASSO SEA

EDUCATION PACK

sharedexperience

BY POLLY TEALE

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERCONTENTS THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

3 The Pack

4 Shared Experience

5 Shared Experience on Expressionism

6 Interview with Polly Teale, Writer and Director

8 Interview with Angela Davies, Designer

9 Jean Rhys Chronology

11 Jean Rhys

13 Interview with Leah Hausman, Movement Director

14 Interview with Diana Quick

16 Jean, Jane, Bertha

17 Excerpt of a Scene

18 Interview with Sarah Ball

19 Diagnosing Bertha

20 Treating Bertha

21 Interview with Madeleine Potter

22 Letters and Love Letters

24 Roseau and England

26 Looking at a Scene

28 Postcolonial Discourse

29 Interview with Amy Marston and Simon Thorp

31 What do I Want?

33 Interview with Howard Davidson, Composer

34 Composing Exercise

36 Writing a Review

37 Further Reading

38 Youth Theatre

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERTHE PACK THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

This pack is intended as anintroduction and follow upto seeing a performance ofAfter Mrs Rochester. I’veincluded backgroundmaterial and alsoinformation specifically onour production; whichincludes interviews with thecreative team.

Although this cannot be anexhaustive account of thewhole production, I hopethat it introduces some ofthe ideas and approachescentral to SharedExperience and thisproduction. Scatteredthrough the pack arequestions and exercises thatI hope will be useful toprovoke discussion andpractical work of your own.

Gillian King

Diana Quick

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERTHE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

AT THE HEART OF OUR WORKIS THE POWER ANDEXCITEMENT OF THEPERFORMER’S PHYSICALPRESENCE AND THEUNIQUE COLLABORATIONBETWEEN ACTOR ANDAUDIENCE - A SHAREDEXPERIENCE. WE ARECOMMITTED TO CREATING ATHEATRE THAT GOESBEYOND OUR EVERYDAYLIVES, GIVING FORM TO THEHIDDEN WORLD OFEMOTION AND IMAGINATION.WE SEE THE REHEARSALPROCESS AS A GENUINELYOPEN FORUM FOR ASKINGQUESTIONS AND TAKINGRISKS THAT REDEFINE THEPOSSIBILITIES OFPERFORMANCE.

Nancy MecklerJoint Artistic Director

Syan Blake

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERSHARED EXPERIENCE ON EXPRESSIONISM

THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

In our everyday lives we hide much of what we think andfeel, for fear we would be considered foolish or evenmad. I believe we have a longing to see expressed inthe theatre that which we conceal in life; to share our‘madness’ and understand that we are not alone.

Central to Shared Experience’s approach is the desire togo beyond naturalism and to see into the character’sprivate worlds. There will be moments on stage whenwe literally enact whatever a character is secretlyfeeling or imagining. In more realistic scenes the socialfaçade is a thin layer beneath which bubbles a river ofsuppressed emotion. During rehearsals we encourageactors to allow this bubbling emotional energy toexplode and take over. In a scene where someone issecretly feeling very angry, when we allow the inner toerupt onto the surface they may viciously attack theother person; if the other character is feeling afraid theymight crawl under the table. Having allowed the innerto erupt, the actor must return to the scene and struggleto conceal it. Although we may see two people drinkingtea, we sense that underneath the social ritual it is as ifmurder is taking place.

This emphasis on subjective experience runs through allareas of the production. For example, the setting of theplay will be more expressive of what a place FEELS likethan what it realistically LOOKS like. In Jane Eyreeverything on stage was grey or black to express theloneliness of Jane’s inner world. In War and Peace theset was a hall of mirrors to suggest the vanity andnarcissism of the aristocracy in Tolstoy’s Russia. In TheHouse of Bernarda Alba the house feels like a prison.We decided to make the door colossally large andencrusted it with locks and bolts. It is this emphasis onthe ‘inner’ or the subjective experience whichcharacterises expressionism and it is at the heart ofShared Experience’s approach.

Polly Teale

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERTHE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

What made you decide to write a play aboutJean Rhys?I read Jean’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea whilstdoing research for my own adaptation of JaneEyre. I was immediately struck by theintensity of the writing - the profound sense ofloneliness, of dislocation. The introduction tothe novel contained a few details of Jean’s lifeand it intrigued me. As I began to read therest of her novels, and talk to people who hadknown her, a picture began to emerge of anextraordinary life. I was struck by the parallels

between her own story and that of MrRochester’s mad wife - the woman who wouldbecome the heroine of Jean’s latemasterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea. Like Jean,Mrs Rochester was a white Creole born in theWest Indies who ended her life isolated in theremote English countryside.

Tell us more about Mrs Rochester - why wasJean drawn to write about her?Jean first read Jane Eyre as a young woman. Ihave often thought how startling it must havebeen to discover a West Indian characterhidden amongst the pages of Englishliterature, which made up her father’s library.It is not surprising that this creature took holdof Jean’s imagination. She too was rebellious.She too felt misunderstood. She too was proneto fits of violent temper. Years later Jeanwould be sent to Holloway Prison for biting aneighbour who she said had made too muchnoise and disturbed her writing. MrsRochester used a similar method of attack onunwanted intruders into her attic.

By the time we meet Mrs Rochester in JaneEyre, she has become a monster, scarcelyrecognisable as human. It is not surprisingthat Jean felt a desire to rewrite MrsRochester’s story, to tell it from the beginning.To tell it from the inside.

Why the locked room? Where did that ideacome from?As I found out more about Jean’s life I wasstruck by the number of relationships she hadhad (including three marriages and manyaffairs) but how rarely she had ever felt closeto anyone.

INTERVIEW WITH WRITER AND DIRECTOR OF

AFTER MRS ROCHESTER - POLLY TEALE

Polly Teale

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITH POLLY TEALE CONTINUED…


“I’ve always felt best when I was alone. Feltmost real. People have always been shadowsto me... I have never known other people”

Her own daughter never lived with Jean. Shefound it hard to get to know her mother. Hervisits often ended in acrimony. The metaphorof the locked room began to take hold. WhilstMrs. Rochester was literally locked up andheld captive, Jean was also a prisoner; aprisoner of her own psyche, of the conditionsthat had created her unhappy life, theschizophrenia of growing up as a poorcolonial, her critical controlling mother whoconvinced her she was unlovable.

Jean’s mother seems to be a key figure...I wanted Jean’s mother to represent thatwhole system. The fears that underlay somuch of the way colonials behaved - theirobsession with control and order in the face ofthe unknown. Although she behavesmonstrously, I see her as a tragic figure borninto a regime that was based on repression.

So it was Jean’s mother that instilled thesefears into Jean?It must have been very confusing for Jean, shesaw - and longed for - the freedom of theislanders, yet her head was crammed full ofWestern notions of respectability andsuperiority.

Do you think this schism partly explainsJean’s unhappiness?Carole Angier in her excellent biographydescribes how the novelist Rosamund Lehmanmet Jean in later life having admired hernovels. They met for tea in a smart Londonrestaurant. She was expecting to meet abohemian, a kindred spirit, but Jean was apicture of poise and elegance. She wascharming but distant and refused to talkabout her work at all. Later, when Rosamund

was invited to Jean’s home, she met adifferent woman. Jean’s husband answeredthe door. His face was scratched. Jean wasdrunk and dishevelled, muttering angrily; onlyhalf aware of her guest, whose visit she hadforgotten. Rosamund stayed only a fewminutes.

Was Jean afraid to let people know her?The need to conceal the parts of herself thatshe knew to be unacceptable was a constanttheme in Jean’s life. Her obsession with herappearance and her clothes was in part due tothis. Yet in spite, or perhaps because of herneed to hide she spoke the truth in hernovels. They are as vivid an account as youwill find of the dark underside of humanexperience, the voice of the underdog, theoutsider. She speaks for anyone who has everfelt alone or afraid.

For Jean writing was not a choice but anecessity. Through it she tried to exorcise herdemons.“When you’ve written it down it doesn’t hurtany more”She was not always successful.

She also wrote, “If I could put it into words it might go.Sometimes you can put it into words and getrid of it. But there aren’t any words for thisfear. The words haven’t been invented” (The Sound of River).

And yet Jean did find the words. Withextraordinary honesty she strips away thelayers of social behaviour and shows ourselvesat our most naked, our most alone.

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER ANGELA DAVIES


What were your initial thoughts on reading the play?We wanted to create a lonely environment for Jean.An Island, which could serve as the room that shemorooned herself in at the beginning of the play. Thisis also evocative of the island that she grew up onand revisits for inspiration. A type of ‘dreamlandscape’.

Do you plan to watch many rehearsals?As much as possible, it will become increasinglyimportant to watch some rehearsals as things get set,e.g., type of prop wanted and where it should comefrom on the set. Many ideas will come up inrehearsals that I will be expected to respond to.

Do you have a favourite image or scene?The image that comes to mind is in the text; animage of forbidden mangoes lying rotting on theground in the garden of the house in Dominica.Thisimage may not necessarily be staged, but none theless, for me it’s a foreboding key image for the play.

Do you have any advice for students who would like acareer in stage design?As for schooling/training, choose a good course thatwill both let you explore your ideas imaginatively andprovide you with competent technical skills to realiseyour ideas. Which also allows you to develop goodcommunicating/ collaborating techniques.

Get to know your text very well, always respond in aninstinctive, honest way. Be prepared to be a bit of achameleon, as each play/ director/ company, willrequire a different approach.

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN RHYS CHRONOLOGY


1889 NovOlder baby sisterdies (before Jean’sbirth).

1890 AugustBorn in Dominica -Ella Gwendolen ReesWilliams.

1896Sister, Brenda, born.

1904 MayGoes to board atConvent.

1904Meets Mr Howard.

1905/6Leaves Convent.

1907Sent to England.

1907/08The Perse School,Cambridge.

1909 Jan - JulyRADA. Leaves –becomes a ChorusGirl, touring the UK.

1910Meets Lancelot GraySmith.

1912Affair with Lancelotends, although hesupports herfinancially until1919.

1913Late abortion, paidfor by Lancelot.

Simon Thorp andSarah Ball

1914Works as artists’model and ‘escort’.

1917Meets and startsaffair with JohnLenglet.

1919Moves to Hollandwith John.

1919 AprilMarries John. Theymove to Paris.

1919 DecSon, William Owen,born.

1920 JanWilliam dies.

1920/21Moves to Vienna,then Budapest.

1922Maryvonne born.Jean puts her in aParis clinic.

1923/24Works as shopreceptionist, tourguide, artists’ model,mannequin.

1924John arrested inParis. Sentenced to8 months in prison.Jean moves in withFord Madox Fordand Stella Bowen.

Affair with FordMadox Ford starts.1st writing publishedin Transatlanticreview. Namechanged from EllaLenglet to JeanRhys.

1926Affair with FordMadox Ford ends.

1927Jean’s mother diesin London.

1928Jean returns toEngland. Moves inwith Leslie TildenSmith, her agent.Sells her first novel– Postures (laterpublished asQuartet).

1929After Leaving MrMackenziepublished.

1933Divorced from John.

1934Marries Leslie TildenSmith. They are verypoor and move atleast 3 times thatsummer. Voyage inthe Dark published.

1935Jean & Lesliearrested afterdrunken brawl instreet. Spends nightin police cells &fined for being‘Drunk & Disorderly’the followingmorning.

Jean Rhys

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN RHYS CHRONOLOGY CONTINUED…


1938Throws Leslie’stypewriter out of thewindow during row.

1938/39Writes Le Revenant(an early version ofWideSargasso Sea) at thistime, but burns themanuscript after arow with Leslie.

1939Good MorningMidnight publishedto ‘sparse andgrudging reviews’.

1940Fined for being‘Drunk & Disorderly’.

1945Meets Max Hamer,Leslie’s cousin.

1946Max Hamer livingwith Jean.

1947Marries Max.

1948 MarchJean throws brickthrough neighbours’window.

1949 AprilRow & fight withBezant (theirneighbour). Appearsin BromleyMagistrates’ Court.Fined £4. Boundover to keep thepeace.

1949 MayFails to appear for3rd charge ofassault.

1949Charged with assaultand beating Bezant.Remanded toHolloway Prison for5 days for medicaland psychiatricreports.

1949 JulySentenced to 2years’ probation &medical andpsychiatrictreatment.

1950Max arrested.Sentenced to 2 yearsin Maidstone Prison.

1950/51Jean disappears.

1957Good MorningMidnight isbroadcast. Jean istracked down. She isworking on WideSargasso Sea.Francis Wyndham,editor of AndréDeutsch, contactsher, he is offered thescript that she isworking on.

1964Jean is persuaded topublish the first partof Wide SargassoSea in Arts &Literature.

1966Max dies. WideSargasso Seapublished. The novelwins the RoyalSociety of LiteratureAward and theW.H.Smith Award.Jean is made aFellow of the RoyalSociety of Literature.

1968Tigers Are Better-Looking published.

1976Sleep It Off Ladypublished.

1978Made a CBE.

1979Jean dies on May14. Her unfinishedautobiography SmilePlease appears.

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN RHYS 1890 - 1979


Jean Rhys - pseudonym of Ella GwendolynRees Williams

Jean Rhys was born in Roseau, Dominica,West Indies. Her father was a Welsh doctorand mother was a Dominican Creole. Rhys’sCreole heritage, both in the Caribbean and inEngland, influenced deeply her life andwriting. As a child she loved literature. At theage of 17 her father sent her to England. Sheattended the Perse School, Cambridge (1907-08), and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artin London (1909).

“It was as if a curtain had fallen, hidingeverything I had ever known. It was almostlike being born again. The colours weredifferent, the smells different, the feelingthings gave you right down inside yourself wasdifferent...I watched it [England] through thetrain-window divided into squares like pocket-handkerchiefs; a small tidy look it had,everywhere fenced off from everywhere else.”

Rhys was forced to abandon her studies whenher father died. She worked for a while as achorus girl. She also received a smallallowance from a former lover.

In 1919 Rhys went to Holland and marriedthe French-Dutch journalist and songwriterJean Langlet. In 1920-22 she lived with himin Vienna and Budapest, then in Paris, andafter 1927 mainly in England. They had twochildren, a son who died in infancy and adaughter. Rhys began writing under thepatronage of Ford Madox Ford, whom she metin Paris. At that time her husband wassentenced to prison for illegal financialtransactions. Her affair with Ford ended withmuch bitterness. Rhys and her husband weredivorced.

“The perpetual hunger to be beautiful andthat thirst to be loved which is the real curseof Eve.” (from Illusion in The Left Bank,1927)

In 1927 Rhys published her first collection ofstories, The Left Bank and Other Stories,taking the penname Jean Rhys. Her firstnovel, Quartet (1928), is a story of the fate ofthe innocent, helpless victim caught in asexual game that she does not understand.The book is considered to be an account ofRhys’s affair with Ford Madox Ford.From 1939 to 1957 Rhys dropped frompublic attention. She had married in 1934Leslie Tilden Smith, who died in 1945. Twoyears later she married Max Hamer, who hadserved a prison term. He died in 1966. Shelived for many years in the West Country, oftenin great poverty, avoiding literary circles. AlsoRhys herself was thought to be dead, but aftera radio company became interested in herwork, she returned to publicity. In 1959 hernovel Good Morning, Midnight was adapted byVaz Dias for the BBC. Encouraged by FrancisWyndham, Rhys started to write again, andher short stories were published in the LondonMagazine and Art and Letters. Rhys continuedto live alone in her primitive Devon cottage,drinking heavily but still writing.

“I also was tired of learning and recitingpoems in praise of daffodils, and my relationswith the few ‘real’ English boys and girls I hadmet were awkward. I had discovered that if Icalled myself English they would snub mehaughtily: ‘You’re not English; you’re a horridcolonial.” (from The Day They Burned theBooks in The Collected Short Stories of JeanRhys, 1968)

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN RHYS BIOGRAPHY CONTINUED…


Rhys gained international acclaim in the 1960s with the publication of her most admired novel,Wide Sargasso Sea.

Praise for Wide Sargasso Sea “The novel is a triumph of atmosphere-of what one is tempted to call Caribbean Gothicatmosphere… It has an almost hallucinatory quality.” - New York Times

Rhys was made a CBE in 1978. Among her awards were W.H. Smith Award, the Royal Society ofLiterature Award and an Arts Council Bursary. She died on May 14, 1979, in Exeter. In the sameyear appeared her unfinished autobiography Smile Please (1979).

Selected works: ■ The Left Bank and Other Stories, 1927

■ Postures, 1928 (as Quartet in 1929) - Kvartetti - film 1981, dir. by James Ivory, screenplayby Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, starring Isabelle Adjani, Maggie Smith, Alan Bates

■ translator: Perversity (by Francis Carco), 1928

■ After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, 1931 - Herra Mackenzien jälkeen

■ translator: Barred (by Edward de Nève), 1932

■ Voyage in the Dark, 1934

■ Good Morning, Midnight, 1939 - Huomenta, keskiyö - television film in 1959

■ Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966 - Siintää Sargassosmeri - film 1992, dir. by John Duigan, starringKarina Lombard, Nathaniel Parker, Claudia Robinson

■ Tigers Are Better-Looking, with a Selection from the Left Bank, 1968

■ Penguin Modern Stories 1, 1969 (with others)

■ My Day, 1975

■ Sleep It Off Lady, 1976

■ Smile Please: An UnfinishedAutobiography, 1979

■ Jean Rhys Letters 1931-1966, 1984

■ Early Novels, 1984

■ The Complete Novels, 1985

■ Tales of the Wide Caribbean, 1985

■ The Collected Short Stories, 1987

Jean Rhys

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITH MOVEMENT DIRECTOR - LEAH HAUSMAN


What were your starting points for working onthis production?I first spoke to Polly about the play and herideas and then I read a biography on JeanRhys.

Were there any specific challenges toovercome?I had to research into new subjects, forexample: 19th century Music Hall and WestIndian sounds and music, and about specificdances: quadrilles and waltzes.

What is the difference between working forShared Experience Theatre and other theatrecompanies?The process at Shared Experience is veryrelaxed, organic and collaborative.

If a student was interested in becoming amovement director what advice would you give them?Be diverse; learn as much as you can aboutacting, directing, singers and singing -thepeople you may be working with and learn aboutlots of different forms of Theatre and dance.

EXERCISE:

◗ Leah and the company worked with different‘energies’, early on in rehearsal: water, fire,earth, hot, cold.

◗ Work step by step - first lie on the floor withyour eyes closed and experiment with simplemovements responding in turn to each of the‘energies’. How do they affect your body?The quality of movement?

◗ In small groups experiment crossing a room (physically), as if you were water orheavy earth etc.

◗ Form two groups and from either side of thehall/studio cross and meet in the middle.

◗ What happens when two energies meet?

◗ How do the qualities of movement change?

◗ Which element is the most dominant?

◗ Physically what happens to the ‘weaker’ group?

◗ Which characters in the production belong towhich element(s)?

Polly Teale and Leah Hausman

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITHDIANA QUICK - JEAN


What attracted you to the part of Jean?I grew up reading her earlier works and thenWide Sargasso Sea was published when I wasat University; it was extremely popular in themid sixties. And then recently I have come toknow Dominica as I was in an adaptation of‘The Orchid House’ by Phyllis Shand Allfreyfor Channel 4 and have been back to theisland several times since.

I also think Jean was a great artist, a greatwriter. And she dealt with an area of femaleexperience which no-one else had touched inEnglish: the tendency in the female to be anarcissistic that is to see herself and valueherself according to how others see her.

How much research do you as an actor do?It depends on the part, but for this, adocumented person, you have to do ‘ice berg‘work, that means you do a lot of research butonly a small part of that will find its way into

the part. You have to feel your way towardsincorporating that person into the part - get asense of what she was.I of course re-read some of her novels andread her letters, diaries and her biography andI spoke to Francis Wyndham, her literaryexecutor. He loved her earlier novels and hewent out of his way to encourage her to writemore. Wide Sargasso Sea probably came outof his encouragement.

How vital was it for you to get the accent earlyon in rehearsals?Jean has to have a partial accent, whichmeans you have to know an accent well beforeyou can reduce it. She is from an earlier eraas well which means that her speech is higherand more clipped than we are used to hearingtoday. She also spent a lot of time speakingFrench and Patois, and that sound is muchfurther forward in the mouth than English -that’s what I’m working on.

Diana Q

uick

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITHDIANA QUICK CONTINUED…


Are there any similarities between you andJean?At the moment I am in the process of writingmy first book, which looks at aspects of myown experiences. It is hard to pull these out ofyourself and I struggle to find a point when Ican let things go and let them stand on theirown. Jean always wanted to change and edither work. Like her, it’s hard for me to meetthe publisher’s deadline!

I also share her love of Dominica and althoughI don’t share her dependence on men, I dounderstand especially growing up when I did -as a child in the fifties and a teenager in thesixties that a passionate woman doesn’t oftenfit into polite society.

I grew up straddling two worlds, my Fatherwas born and raised in India and although Iwas born here I had a sense of not beingentirely English, not quite belonging. Perhapsthat was why early on in my career I played alot of exotic characters: Eastern princesses,Greek peasants etc etc!

How would Jeans life have changed withoutalcohol?She would have felt a lot more pain and a lotless pain, alcohol was a necessaryanaesthetic. Her life was full of emotionalturmoil: her break up with Lancelot, FordMaddox Ford abandoning her, living as a semicall girl. Alcohol disinhibited her. Herhusband would often give her wine to help hersettle down to write, but it often got out ofhand and led to all manner of problems - it letout all the anger, rage and helplessness shefelt. It got her in trouble with the law: itcreated a dependency in her: but then sheprobably wouldn’t have written at all without it.

How do you find working with SharedExperience?It is much more physical than othercompanies, which I like. I love the visualaspect of theatre and this particular play isvery different from anything I have donebefore as there are three of us playing thesame character: Jean, Ella and Bertha.

QUESTION

◗ There is a very fluid time line in After MrsRochester, what do you gain theatrically byjumping and cutting between different timesand characters?

◗ Perspective switches two times in the novelWide Sargasso Sea

What is the effect of reading the same storyfrom different people’s points of view?

Which narrative voice do you trust more?

Why?

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN, JANE AND BERTHA THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

In our production of After Mrs Rochester,Sarah Ball plays Bertha Mason, ‘the madwoman in the attic’. She is the first MrsRochester in Jane Eyre and alsoAntoinette/Bertha in Wide Sargasso Sea. InAfter Mrs Rochester, Bertha representseverything in Jean which is unacceptable toothers: both the positive and negative aspectsie. her sexuality, sensuality, imagination andjoy, as well as her rage and grief.

The play, After Mrs Rochester shows the threewomen, Jean, Jane and Bertha, act andinteract in the same space; Jean’s lockedroom. The audience is led to the places of herimagination and memory - Jean’s fascinationwith the novel of Jane Eyre as a child takes usto scenes between Jane and Rochester onstage. Ever present is Bertha Mason, thewoman from the West Indies from the novelJane Eyre - the character who is thought to bemad for her passionate outbreaks and thewoman with whom Jean empathises and findsherself interlinked and indistinguishable fromin our play.

Some critics have viewed Jane Eyre’s Berthaas a symbol of the silencing of the femalevoice: she is locked away and kept secret as ifshe does not exist, and her words and actionsare interpreted as monstrous (especially byMr. Rochester) because she has been labelled“insane.”

QUESTION

◗ In Jane Eyre, some critics like to view Berthaas Jane’s “evil twin.” In the production ofAfter Mrs Rochester can Jean be viewed astwinned to Bertha as well?

◗ If so how does the production show this?

◗ Physically, how does Diana (playing Jean)succumb to her ‘Bertha’ side?

Madeleine Potter and Diana Quick

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERJEAN, JANE AND BERTHA CONTINUED…THE STORY OF JEAN RHYS

sharedexperience

In Chapter 12 of the novel, Jane Eyrearticulates what was for her time aradically feminist philosophy:

Women are supposed to be very calmgenerally: but women feel just asmen feel; they need exercise for theirfaculties, and a field for their effortsas much as their brothers do; theysuffer from too rigid a restraint, tooabsolute a stagnation, precisely asmen would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privilegedfellow-creatures to say that theyought to confine themselves tomaking puddings and knittingstockings, to playing on the pianoand embroidering bags. It isthoughtless to condemn them, orlaugh at them, if they seek to domore or learn more than custom haspronounced necessary for their sex.

JANE EYRE -adapted by Polly Teale

AN EXTRACT FROM SCENE THREE

Lower School. Assembly. Jane stands ona high stool.

BROCKLEHURST: I place her thus so that everyone maysee her and recognize her. You observeshe possess the ordinary form ofchildhood. No one would think that theevil one has already found a servant andagent in her, yet such is the case. Thisgirl is not a true member of the flock.You must shun her example. Avoid hercompany. Teachers, you must keep youreyes on her movements and weigh wellher words, for in these words is herillness. This girl is a liar. (Sees a girl inthe audience) what is that girl withcurled hair? Curled red hair. Stand up.Turn around. Why has she or any othercurled hair? I have again and again saidthat hair must be arranged modestly,plainly...

TEACHER: Her hair curls naturally, sir.

BROCKLEHURST:We are here to mortify in these girls thelusts of the flesh. To teach them toclothe themselves with shamefacednessand sobriety. That girl’s hair. It must becut off entirely. I will send a barbertomorrow.

EXERCISE:THE BELIEF LINE.

◗ Draw or imagine a line running thelength of your hall/studio. Choose oneend which represents ‘Strongly agree’,the other end therefore represents‘Strongly disagree’.

◗ In groups create a list of questions orstatements (for example: Women areequal to men: Respect is the mostimportant quality in anyrelationship...) and answer thequestions by choosing where youstand on the belief line.

◗ Now answer as Bertha, Jean, Jane orRochester.

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITHSARAH BALL - BERTHA MASON


What attracted you to the part of Bertha?The fact that it was so scary! A character thatwould grow in rehearsals. The physical side ofthe part I also find very interesting.

How much research do you as an actor do?On this project I focussed on Wide SargassoSea, as I see that as Bertha’s story. WideSargasso Sea is such a vivid book, full ofwonderful images and as a lot of what I(Bertha) say is so disparate it helps me tohave clear images in my mind.

Bertha is a very physical role -what advicewould you give a student playing this role orsimilar?Don’t be scared, follow your instincts and thenit’s impossible to fail. If you try something andit doesn’t work, that’s a way of learning. Don’tedit anything, go for it and don’t be worriedabout being embarrassed or wrong.

In AFTER MRS ROCHESTER, Bertha is only aproduct of Jeans imagination, is it hard tohave your own objectives?Wide Sargasso Sea really filled outAntoinette’s life for me, although Bertha is afictional character from Jane Eyre, WideSargasso Sea fills in the details.I feel Bertha is the dark side of Jean, she’snot around when Jean is happy, she onlysurfaces when Jean is alone or upset.

Do you have a favourite line?‘Some people say that life is short but it isn’tif you don’t want it - it go on and on andon...’ (Bertha)

QUESTION

◗ Many of the characters in all three texts:After Mrs Rochester,Wide Sargasso Seaand Jane Eyre are troubled and many aredrunk. How do ‘madness’ and drunkennessserve the characters? Do they give thecharacters freedom? protection? the ability tosee the truth? the ability to hide from it?

Sarah Ball

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERDIAGNOSING BERTHA THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

THE VICTORIAN DIAGNOSIS:

Victorian psychiatry held that the beginnings ofinsanity was hereditary and was passed on throughmothers, this is the first criteria which Rochesteruses in his diagnosis of Bertha’s insanity. Hestates that his honeymoon with Bertha ended whenhe learned that his mother-in-law was “‘mad, andshut up in a lunatic asylum”’. As Elaine Showalterstates in her book ‘The Female Malady’,

“Bronte’s account echoes the beliefs of Victorianpsychiatry about the transmission of madness:since the reproductive system was the source ofmental illness in women, women were the primecarriers of madness”

Women were seen as especially susceptible tomadness which was seen as linked to theirmenstrual cycle. Doctors believed that either “anabnormal quantity or quality of the blood,according to this theory, could affect the brain”. Itshould be noted that Bertha’s violent escapades areon nights when the moon is “blood-red” or “broadand red” while at other times she is quiet andcalm. Her reproductive cycle, and her femininity isalso seen to be a contribution to her insanity.

Age old beliefs regarding women and insanity stillhave influence today, not least because of the fearand confusion surrounding earlymisunderstandings of menstruation. The influencescan still be seen in our language, for example, theword hysteria means ‘wandering womb’ and theslang term ‘the curse’ for menstruation.

QUESTIONS

◗ What is ‘madness’? Do you agree with labellingBertha as ‘mad’? What has caused this madness?

◗ Why does Jean identify with Bertha?

◗ Physically, how would you illustrate Bertha’smadness on stage, or in a dance piece?

Was Bertha’s madness hereditary, a product of her upbringing or a direct result of her confinement by Rochester?

Sarah Ball

20

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERTREATING BERTHA THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

Moral management

In Jane Eyre the madwoman in the attic is avery unsympathetic character, an obstacle thatstands in the way of the union of Mr.Rochester and Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronteportrays Mr. Rochester as a man with a darkpast who nevertheless is not to blame for theburden with which he is saddled. WideSargasso Sea obviously sees this situationfrom a different angle. What are some of thefactors that might have led to the differencebetween Charlotte Bronte’s version and that ofJean Rhys?

The accepted treatment in the Victorian periodfor the wealthy who were insane was to keepthem locked away in their homes. Bertha hadbeen shut up upon being declared mad by adoctor.

Bronte reflects Victorian humanitarianismwhen she criticizes Rochester’s treatment ofBertha. Elaine Showalter in The FemaleMalady states,

“during the first half of the nineteenthcentury…the idea that…lunatic patients couldbe handled without resource to physicalrestraint won wide acceptance in England”.

This type of treatment for the insane wasnamed moral management. Moralmanagement includes therapy, non-restraint,regular visits by a doctor, and a suitable“moral” environment to cure patients of theirinsanity. And yet, when he is unable to controlBertha, Rochester ties her up. Janeadmonishes him, stating:

‘“you are inexorable for that unfortunatelady…It is cruel—she cannot help beingmad”’

This reflects the Victorian disapproval ofphysically restraining the insane. Theybelieved that therapy was a better, morehumane treatment for mental illness thanlocking people away. Victorian psychiatry heldthat:

“violence of manic patients was in large partcaused by the harsh way they were treated.Treating the patient like a rational person,they suggested, was the best way to cultivatethe sense of self-esteem that would lead toself-control”

The physical restraint that Rochester usedwould have been seen as outdated and non-productive by modern Victorian science.

By locking Bertha up, Rochester would not beseen as cruel but merely outdated. TheMadhouse Act (1828) and the Lunatics Act(1845) allowed for a more humane treatmentof the mentally ill, providing a clean, safeenvironment to cure insanity. But the socialstigma of having a mad wife is too great forRochester.

(From extracts by Patricia L. Herrick)

21

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITHMADELEINE POTTER - ELLA


What attracted you to the part of Ella?I found the challenges in the script very attractive. It requires the creation of a new theatricallanguage. For instance, two people, Diana Quick and myself, play Jean Rhys, while anothercharacter, Bertha, exists both in her own reality and as a kind of alter-ego in ours. The play is amemory play and the use of time is very original. Also of course, I loved the part. I had neverread Jean Rhys’s books. I have now read them all and they are startling and brilliant and verymodern. I was drawn to the artist and to the woman herself.

How important a factor is the geography/world that Ella grew up in? How does it shape herpersonality?Jean Rhys, or Ella Gwendoline Rhys as she was named, was a white West Indian. The lushness,beauty and ferocity of the Dominican landscape in which she grew up could not but powerfullyaffect her. There is a profound sense of displacement and alienation in her books. She emigratedto a cold country, but had a sunny country within her. This is a theme in all her books.

Do you have a favourite line?Yes, I like what Ford Maddox Ford says to Jean:‘We are trying to bridge this great chasm between ourselves and others. To find ourselves in astory’.

Madeleine Potter and Hattie Ladbury

22

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERLETTERS AND LOVE LETTERS


Jean Rhys spent her life struggling with hernature. She desperately needed love but wasunable to receive it. Carole Angier, in herbiography of Jean Rhys, entitled Jean Rhys,Life and Work, summarises Jean’s mostpainful feelings, amongst them:

‘Her absolute inability to be alone: “You knowI can’t be alone. I can’t,” she wrote in thevery beginning, in The Left Bank. Her inability none the less ever to feelanything but alone: ever to feel any realconnection to or understanding of anotherhuman being.’

Jean writes many letters in ‘After MrsRochester’. On the written page, she couldexpress desires and thoughts that she felt maybe forbidden to be spoken, as she so oftenfound herself in trouble for her actions.However, Jean distrusted ‘just words’, asCarole Angier’s described:

Nothing, of course, could be more like Jeanthan this distrust of ‘just words’, and thesense that all that matters goes on beneaththeir surface. It’s part of her general sensethat what is important is hidden; it’s part ofher instinctive preference for suggestion overstatement, for feeling over thought...’

Polly Teale captures Jean’s struggle withtrusting words in the play; shown in thisexcerpt, after Launcelot has ended theirrelationship:

JEAN I found a room. Somewhere.Anywhere. I didn’t care. I closed thecurtains and got into bed. For twodays I wrote letters.

ELLA (writing) I’d like to see you justonce more. It needn’t be for verylong. It need only be for an hour.(Corrects) Half an hour.

BERTHA SCREWS UP LETTER. AS SHESPEAKS ELLA WRITES HALF SPEAKING THEWORDS ALONG WITH HER.

BERTHA Me love you. Me love you. Me loveyou. You can’t do this to me. If Iwere a dog you wouldn’t do this tome. I wish I was your dog so that Icould follow you and smell you andsleep at the bottom of your bed andeat the scraps you throw under thetable and lick your shoes and haveyou beat me.........

ELLA CONTINUES TO WRITE DOWNBERTHA’S WORDS AS JEAN SPEAKS.

JEAN For three days I wrote withoutstopping. Page after page. I didn’tsleep. Didn’t eat. On the third day Icaught the last post.SHE READS THE FINAL LETTERAS SHE PUTS IT IN ANENVELOPE.

ELLA I am now living at Number TenOfford Street. I hope your trip is asuccess. Regards. Ella.

JEAN I put the rest of the pages in achocolate box and locked them in asuitcase. When you’ve written itdown it doesn’t hurt so much. Butyou’re finished. Part of you is gone.

23

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERLETTERS AND LOVE LETTERS CONTINUED…


QUESTION:

Jean Rhys had many lovers inher life and although theysometimes provided peaks ofhappiness they more often thannot contributed to her troughsof despair.

◗ Jean described herself as:“a doormat in a world of boots.” Why do youthink she felt this?

◗ Jean writes and receivesmany letters in After MrsRochester, how are theyused in the production?What do they mean to you?

EXERCISE: SOLVING AND DRAMATISING.

◗ When might a letter be useful as a dramatic device?

◗ How could you stage the writing of a letter on stage?

◗ In today’s world of texting and email, would a letter have a differentsignificance? In what circumstances would you write a letter and why?

◗ As a class, write a letter from Ella as a chorus girl, to her mother.What might Ella want to say and what would go in the final posteddraft? How could you dramatise this? For example, would you useBertha, Jean and Ella, as Polly has done? Would you have the motherin view on stage? See the mother’s reaction to the letter? Have afictional scenario that shows the result of the more truthful versionthat can’t be sent? Think about the hidden world of Ella’s pain andfeeling of rejection from her mother. How could you stage this?

◗ Discuss in groups and work as an ensemble to solve and stage this,using the same leter that the whole class composed together. howdifferent are the various dramatisations?

Charlotte Brontesimilarly oftenexpressed her mostpersonal feelings inletters. This letter waswritten by CharlotteBronte, English writer,to Professor ConstantinHeger. There is noevidence that this love was ever returnedby him.

January 8, 1845

Monsieur,the poor have not need of much to sustain

them — they ask only for the crumbs that

fall from the rich man’s table. But if they

are refused the crumbs they die of hunger.

Nor do I, either, need much affection from

those I love. I should not know what to

do with a friendship entire and complete -

I am not used to it. But you showed me of

yore a little interest, when I was your

pupil in Brussels, and I hold on to the

maintenance of that little interest — I hold

on to it as I would hold on to life.

24

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERROSEAU AND ENGLAND THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

Wide Sargasso Sea begins in Roseau, thecapital of Dominica. The setting of the playAfter Mrs Rochester is multi-locational, in thatwe leave Jean’s room to go with her, in herimagination, to the places of her past. One ofthese places is Roseau, where Jean lived as achild.

Her mother describes the island in the play:

MOTHER: Of course it’s beautiful here… butimpossible. It’s the heat and thehumidity. We have to change ourclothes three times a day. Fabricrots. Furniture falls apart. Nothinglasts. Everything decays as quicklyas it grows. The road they built hasalmost returned to forest. Threetimes they’ve sold the house on theImperial road in as many years.They try but it defeats them in theend.

From ‘After Mrs Rochester’

Jean is sent to England to complete herschooling there. Jean describes her memory ofher first sight of the country;

JEAN: England. It was as if a curtain hadfallen, hiding everything I had everknown. The colours were different.The smells different. I watched itthrough the train window, dividedinto squares like pockethankerchiefs. A small tidy look ithad. Everywhere fenced off from everywhere else.”

“She found pleasure in memories, as anold woman might have done. Her mindwas a confusion of memory andimagination. It was always places thatshe thought of, not people. She would liethinking of the dark shadows of housesin a street white with sunshine; or treeswith slender black branches and younggreen leaves, like the trees of a Londonsquare in spring; or of a dark-purple sea,the sea of a chromo or of some tropicalcountry that she had never seen.” (fromAfter Leaving Mr Mackenzie, 1931)

QUESTION:

◗ How does Jeans first impressions of Englandmanifest itself in her experience of Englandand the English?

QUESTION:

◗ How does this description of Jean’s homeland giveus insight into her character?

25

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERROSEAU CONTINUED…THE STORY OF JEAN RHYS

sharedexperience

An extract from After Mrs Rochester

ELLA (reads Jane Eyre) I instantly fell inlove with that tropical clime wherethe light is golden and the air warm.(addressing Jean) How did she know?

JEAN She made it upELLA She never came here?JEAN She lived on the Yorkshire moors.ELLA (reading) I walked amidst the

dripping mango trees of my wetgarden. Amongst its drenchedpomegranates and pineapples.Mosquitoes hummed.

JEAN She used to read the traveloguesin the back of her father’snewspaper.

QUESTION

◗ Why is the climate and the descriptions of nature so important in all three texts:Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea and AfterMrs Rochester?

◗ What effect does the move to England haveon Bertha and Jean? How is this shown inthe production?

Syan Blake

26

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERLOOKING AT A SCENE THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

ELLA READS ALOUD TO TITE. THEY ARELYING TOGETHER ON THE GROUND.SOUND OF THE RIVER.

ELLA: He answered me withouthesitation “The creature of an overstimulated brain. I must be carefulof you my treasure. Nerves likeyours were not made for roughhandling”. (Ella closes the book)

TITE: What happens next?

ELLA: They go to the church but in themiddle of the wedding a manshouts for it to stop. It turns outMr Rochester is married already.He’s married to the woman whoescapes at night from the attic.And guess where she comes from?

TITE: You’ve read it before?

ELLA: Five times. Guess

TITE: I don’t know.

ELLA: The West Indies. He came hereand married her. (she reads) Iinstantly fell in love with thattropical clime where the light isgolden and the air warm. (looks upfrom the page) When we’re grownup and married let’s still come andmeet at the river.

TITE: Me thought you going to England.Become a lady.

ELLA: Promise.

TITE: Live in a house you get lost. Can’tnever get out.

ELLA: Say we will.

TITE: I ain’t getting marry.

ELLA: You have to.

TITE: Say who.

ELLA: Everybody. You have to marry. Youhave to marry if you want to..

TITE: My mother ain’t marry.

ELLA: But how did she.....she’sgot....You’ve got to be married tohave babies.

TITE: (laughs) Sometimes you is like ababy. Some times you is too stupidto be a baby. (she laughs andlaughs)

Polly (the director) and Madeleine (Ella) lookat the scene early on in rehearsals

Polly: Why does she want to read thebook to Tite?

Madeleine: She wants to show Tite howexciting reading is and herknowledge gives her a feeling ofcontrol over Tite who can’t read.

Polly: What about Bertha. Does she findher frightening? If she shares thestory with Tite will it will diffusethe fear?

Madeleine: I don’t think she understands ityet.

Polly: It fascinates her, yet disturbs hertoo - the fact that Bertha comesfrom the West Indies, the placewhere they live themselves. Whydoes she say, when we are marriedlets come back here?

Madeleine: I think that the weight of sexualityand adulthood stops your freedom,that’s why she wants to comeback, and back to a place with herbest friend and the freedom thatTite represents to her.

27

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERLOOKING AT A SCENE CONTINUED…THE STORY OF JEAN RHYS

sharedexperience

Polly: Jane Eyre is a novel about thedark and frightening adult world.

Madeleine: I think Ella is realizing that herparents and adults don’t haveeverything under control.

Polly: Tite is very mocking, poking fun atthe fantasy of living in a big housein England as a lady. The fantasyexcludes Tite and so she is keen toundermine it.

QUESTION:

◗ What would Ella have been told about babiesand marriage?

◗ Look at the scene closely.When do you thinkElla is in control and when is Tite?

EXERCISE:

◗ Discuss the word ‘status’. What does it meanto you? What defines status? How does itaffect our relationships?

◗ In groups of 4, allocate two actors to play Ellaand Tite; the other two people have a selectionof different number playing cards. Play thescene and during the scene adjust eachcharacter’s status by showing the actorsdifferent playing cards. A high number signifiesa high status, so 10 would be high, 1 or ace islow. For example, the scene may start withElla on a status of 9 and Tite on 3. How doesstatus affect the scene and yourcharacterisations? Make sure you allow timefor the actors to develop their work on eachstatus before switching them.

Madeleine Potter and Syan Blake

28

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERPOSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSE IN WIDE SARGASSO SEA


Wide Sargasso Sea is not only a brilliant deconstruction of Brontë’s legacy, but isalso a damning history of colonialism in the Caribbean.The story is set just after the emancipation of the slaves, in that uneasy time whenracial relations in the Caribbean were at their most strained. Antoinette (Rhysrenames her and has Rochester impose the name of Bertha on her when theirrelationship dissolves) is descended from the plantation owners, and her grandfatherhas had many children by negro women. She can be accepted neither by the negrocommunity nor by the colonial elite. As a poor white creole she is nothing. The taintof racial impurity, coupled with the suspicion that she is mentally imbalanced bringabout her inevitable downfall.The merging of Antoinette’s fate into that ofBertha’s is inevitable, but Rhys allows us tointerpret the fate of Antoinette differently byhaving the ending open. Antoinette dreams ofthe fire and leap to her death, but the novelends with her resolution to act rather than adescription of her death or an exact repetitionof Bronte’s words. Thus the possibility of adifferent fate for Rhys’s character is leftintact. The more recent text can be said tohave an influence on the earlier text and toextend its possibilities.The desire to rewrite the master narratives ofWestern discourse is a common colonialpractice, with texts like The Tempest,Robinson Crusoe and Great Expectationsbeing given the same scrutiny that Rhysaffords to Bronte’s text. The telling of a storyfrom another point of view can be seen as anextension of the deconstructive project toexplore the gaps and silences in a text. Sincewriting has long been recognised as one of thestrongest forms of cultural control, therewriting of central narratives of colonialsuperiority is a liberating act for those fromthe former colonies. Rhys’s text is a highlysophisticated example of the re-evaluation ofEuropean perceptions of the Caribbean creolecommunity.

David Annen

29

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERIN CONVERSATION WITH AMY MARSTON AND SIMON THORP


How much research do you as actors do?

Simon: It always depends on the project; I’ve read the adaptation of JaneEyre that Polly wrote, bits of the novel and Wide Sargasso Sea.

Amy: On this project we’ve done quite a lot; the more information youhave, the more chance that within that you will find something thatyou can use. On this project there are lots of different timescalesand locations to learn about.

Do you find it hard to play a character based on a real person?

Simon: It depends on the character, but usually if they’ve been written intoa play it’s because they are interesting. A Ford Maddox Ford societyexists - if they came to see the show, that would be frightening!

Amy Marston and Simon Thorp

30

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERIN CONVERSATION WITH AMY MARSTON AND SIMON THORP CONTINUED…


You were cast to play Jane and Maryvonne, do they share any similarities?

Amy: Yes, they are both ‘good’ people, Maryvonne strives to do what isright. She is very practical in contrast to her mother. Jane, too, shedoesn’t want a proper wedding dress for example, whereas Jeanloves make up and looking beautiful.

What do you consider to be the vices and virtues of Jane and Rochester?

Simon: Rochester’s vice is women; he’s searching for the perfect woman.With Bertha and locking her up, he thinks he is acting in her bestinterests, he is an honourable man underneath and he thinks he’sdoing the right thing. He doesn’t accept responsibility until hemeets Jane. He is a romantic but he is selfish.

Amy: Jane hides her feelings due to necessity so perhaps that isn’t a vice,if you were her friend you would be frustrated at how she hides herfeelings and her temper. She tries to be honest, doesn’t flatter andis selfless.

Simon: They both have parts missing, what one lacks the other offers.

How different is it working for Shared Experience than other companies?

Amy: It is a very different way of working, in the first few days we did alot of physical work, improvising and exposing physically theunderneath of our characters, revealing the inner emotional states.It is a very freeing way to work.

Simon: It’s a combination of work I’ve done before -naturalism, physicaltheatre, discussion, improvisation.

Do you have a favourite line/s?

Simon: As Rochester: ‘Mangoes grow on the trees, Jane’. And as FordMaddox Ford: ‘It’s frighteningly alive, dark, truthful, I’ve never readanything like it’.

Amy: In the last scene, Maryvonne to Jean: ‘although I never knew whatto say to you… I knew everything about you’.

31

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERWHAT DO I WANT? THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

Character: Rochester

Super Objective: To be loved.

Obstacles: He (and Jane) are incomplete. His main obstacle is his guilt over BerthaMason. He has some significant insecurities too, he considers himselfunattractive, he has a fear of rejection and he has a need to protect himself.

Useful Words: Bombastic, Cantankerous, opinionated, perceptive, suspicious, vulnerable,insecure, lonely, romantic, wealthy.

Character: Bertha Mason

Super Objective: To be whole.

Obstacles: Feels broken.

Useful Words: Anger, deprived, sexual, alone, waiting, pain, numbness, endless, rejected,abandoned, vengeful.

Character: Maryvonne

Super Objective: To have a peaceful life.

Obstacle: Her Mothers’ impossible behaviour.She loves her mother.

Each character in the production has a ‘want’, something that drives them through theirlives and the play. This is called the Super Objective. Also there is an ‘obstacle’ thatstops them from achieving their objective.

During rehearsals, Polly, the director and the actors discussed what each character’sobjective and obstacle might be. These are never carved in stone as through therehearsals ideas grow and change.

32

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERWHAT DO I WANT? CONTINUED…THE STORY OF JEAN RHYS

sharedexperience

Character: Tite

Super Objective: To live life to the fullest.

Obstacle: Growing up, life changing, growing apart. Racist society.

Useful Words: Life, love, liberator, freedom, work.

Character: Lancelot

Super Objective: To be chivalrous -to rescue a ‘damsel in distress’, to be a gentleman.

Obstacle: Low self-esteem and feelings of failure.

Useful Words: From ‘Voyage in the Dark’: ‘as if everything and everybody in the whole worldbelonged to him’, cut glass. From his Father: ‘No Smith has ever been astockbroker’ and as an old man: ‘My cousin, the Queen’.

EXERCISE THE CHAIRS GAME:

Two chairs are placed in the empty space andtwo actors each sit on a chair. Each actor isgiven a ‘want’, which should work in oppositionto his/her partner’s ‘want’ for example:

◗ To punish◗ To want forgiveness◗ To enthuse◗ To freeze◗ To protect◗ To blame

Using only the chairs and their position relatingto the other person and in the room, each actormust try to change the emotional state of theother. No words or sound needed!

One person ‘speaks’ by moving their chair inrelation to the other person and the space, thenthe second actor ‘answers’ by moving his/herchair.

They pursue their ‘want’ in opposition to theirpartner.Their objective is to win their case andto change/dissuade the other actor of theirs.

Hattie Ladbury

33

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERINTERVIEW WITH THE COMPOSER -

HOWARD DAVIDSON


How do you arrive at creating the sound and music for the play?

I start by experimenting with textures based on certain key wordsor phrases that feature strongly in the script. ‘Buzzing’ is oneexample. ‘Time’ is another. And there are particular scenes thatare particularly suggestive of music. Convent. Rainforest. Vienna.Passages from Jane Eyre.

I try and assemble a palette of sound and instruments that suitthe whole score. A basic texture or ambience for example thatcould suggest rushing, water, confusion, anger, when combinedwith a few other key sounds. Sounds that we’ve heard before indifferent contexts. For example the various clock ticks (andtocks) that are heard at the beginning are later used as ‘stings’ toenter and then exit fantasy sequences. In this way, I think, thescore becomes ‘organic’ and homogenous.

Were there any specific challenges to overcome?

A few. The play is very ‘not real’ as it were. So both music andsound have to compliment this. So what sounds like a rainforestisn’t really a rainforest at all. The clocks are not clocks. It’s meinside a grand piano with the sustain pedal down.

Do you do any historical/geographical research?

Yes a little. It took me a while to get the island right. Dominicanot Dominican Republic. And I found the actual musical thatJean Rhys was in. A Dominican actor taught me a song he sangas a boy-and it’s in the show. It’s in Creole too, so I learnt a littleabout that.

What are the main differences between working with SharedExperience and other theatre companies?

I do very little theatre work so I dont really know. I have worked alot with dance companies and they are very physical. I quite likethe idea of several people playing the same character at once onstage.

34

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERCOMPOSING EXERCISE THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

Much of Howard Davidson’s scoring for After Mrs Rochester playsunder a scene. As he states in the interview on the previouspage, the play is full of evocative scenes that are suggestive ofmusic, but Howard will not always use instruments in theirobvious way.

Split the class in to 3 groups and use voices only to create asoundscape inspired by the following given titles, composing yourscores for the following excerpts from the play:

1. INSIDE BERTHA MASON’S MIND:Bertha: Six flights. Four landings with ten doors. All shut. Forty five

steps. Forty five or forty six. I lose count. Too tired to count.Too tired to sleep. Too tired. And there are so many hours leftto live. So many. People say that life is short but it’s not if youdon’t want it. It go on and on and on and… Never ending. Noending.

2. ELLA’S HOME AS A CHILD:Mother: Do you know what they say about us?Father: I don’t know and I don’t care.Mother: The house falling down around their ears. The crazy daughter

who walked down the street dressed like a nigger.Father: She’s a child.Mother: She’s thirteen years old.Father: A child.Mother: It’s all very well for you. You’re a man. You can do as you

please. But a woman. A woman has to learn to fit in. To do asshe’s told. Who do you think will want her? Who will marry herif she doesn’t know how to behave? (To Ella) Who do you thinkwill love you?

Ella: I don’t know.

3. THE ISLAND OF DOMINICA:Jean: Whenever I could escape from the house I would follow Tite

down to the river to swim. Past the abandoned sugar works.Into the forest. Where there was no road. No path. No track.The trees grew wild there. Huge rotting flowers drop into thewater. The smell was heavy sweet and very strong. You couldsmell them a long way off. The smell of decay, of death, and afresh living smell.

35

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERCOMPOSING EXERCISE CONTINUED…


It’s best if the 3 groups can create the soundscape in separate rooms.At first, read the excerpt that fits with the title you are composing for.Discuss the title and the scene. Create the soundscapes by sitting in acircle, discussing the group’s thoughts on the atmosphere of the place -How does it feel? Is there a colour that would best suit it? Emotions?Are there actual sounds present that should be layered into theatmospheric score? Then the group should close their eyes andimprovise, experimenting with sounds and listening to each other’sideas, sometimes layering sounds and leaving solitary sounds at othertimes. Then open eyes, discuss what worked and didn’t, set some of thesounds, and repeat the exercise. Once the soundscape is complete,invite the other students to come and sit in the middle of your soundcircle and close their eyes. This time the composers can keep their eyesopen as they repeat their soundscape for the captive audience. At theend, the audience should be asked to describe how the score affectedthem, what atmosphere it evoked and if it gave rise to any images forthem.

Now rehearse and play each short excerpt that you have composed forand work with the soundscape.◗ Can you integrate the performers of the soundscape as ensemble

players in the scene, or would you rather keep them out of theplaying space?

◗ Does your composition introduce or punctuate the scene, or should itcontinue under the dialogue?

After performing, discuss. ◗ Did the sound enhance your audience’s understanding and enjoyment

of the scene? ◗ Did it create the right environment and atmosphere? ◗ What, if anything, would you change?

36

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERGUIDELINES FORWRITING A REVIEW


• Say what you saw• Say what you think• Reflect on your responses• Write freely from the heart

• Don’t worry about given theories• Create your own theories

• Describe the tiniest moment that remains vivid

• Question that moment• Find out what it says to you• Say why it spoke to you

CONSIDER• The light, the sound, the movement,

the colours and textures of the play• The words, the music, the rhythms of

the text

• The set, the costumes, the style of the production

• The Objects: The fans… Books…Wardrobe… Embroideries… Bottles…Glasses… Papers... Clothes... Suitcases

• The themes… The characters… The story… The ending…

(and try to say everything you want in just300 words!)

Send your review to:Shared Experience TheatreThe Soho Laundry9, Dufour’s PlaceLondon W1V 1FE

or e-mail: [email protected]

Simon Thorp and Sarah Ball

37

AFTER MRS ROCHESTERFURTHER READING THE STORY OF JEAN RHYSsharedexperience

Jean Rhys by LouisJames (1978);

Jean Rhys: A CriticalStudy by Thomas F.Staley (1979);

Jean Rhys by Peyer Wolfe(1980);

Jean Rhys by Arnold E.Davidson (1985);

Ladies and theMammies: Jane Austenand Jean Rhys, ed. bySelma James (1986);

Jean Rhys and the Novelas Women’s Text byNancy R. Harrison(1988);

Critical Perspectives inJean Rhys, ed. byPierrette Frickey (1990);

Jean Rhys: A Life andWork by Carole Angiers(1990);

Jean Rhys’s HistoricalImagination: Readingand Writing the Creole byVeronica Marie Gregg(1995);

Jean Rhys by Carol AnnHowells (1991);

Jean Rhys by SanfordSternlicht (1997);

Jean Rhys by SylvieMaurel (1999);

The World of Jean Rhysby Sue Thomas (1999)

The Female Malady byElaine Showlotan

Amy Marston

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AFTER MRS ROCHESTERYOUTH, EDUCATION, TRAINING AND ACCESS


The company’s Youth Theatre, based at the Soho Laundry and supported by Westminster CityCouncil, is a hotbed of creativity. Young Performers come to stretch their physical andimaginative muscle in courses led by artists from within the company. It runs a wide variety ofworkshops and projects designed to put members in touch with the physical style of the maincompany’s work.

Contact Kate Saxon, Education and Youth Director, at Shared Experience on 020 7434 9248 or [email protected]

Shared Experience would like to thank the following fortheir imaginative and enlightened support:

A Shared Experience Youth Theatre Workshop

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