Northern Ballet Jane Eyre Review
April 8, 2025 | Theatre Royal – Nottingham, England
Ballets adapted from literary works are not unheard of. Think Romeo & Juliet, Don Quixote, Onegin, or even The Nutcracker.
But translating a novel into a ballet poses many challenges, since all words and dialogue is removed. Instead, a ballet must communicate in other ways, through physicality, musicality, and other visual cues.
This is a challenge that Jane Eyre, created by Cathy Marston and performed by Northern Ballet, embraces.
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Northern Ballet Jane Eyre Review
Jane Eyre is an adaptation of Charlotte Brontё’s famous novel of the same name. Set in Yorkshire in the turn of the 19th century, the titular character encounters numerous challenges and strife from childhood and into young adulthood. However, through her strong will, she ultimately finds happiness through choosing her own path and falling in love with Mr. Rochester.
Marston, who is known in the ballet world for her literary adaptations, originally choreographed Jane Eyre for Northern Ballet in 2016. It has since traveled internationally, but Northern Ballet’s current tour brings the production back to its home country.
It was exciting to have the opportunity to watch the ballet with its original company and so close to the novel’s setting.
Beyond telling the beats of the iconic story, the ballet crucially remains faithful to the source material’s tone and themes.
It is dark, eerie, and introspective. I imagine this is similar to the original novel, although I haven’t read it. But after watching this ballet, I’d like to.
The music, composed by Philip Feeney, and the set and costumes, designed by Patrick Kinmonth, are simple and somber, reflecting the tone of the ballet. The dark grey tones depict the Yorkshire moors and the desolate environment in which Jane grows up. The brightest colours in the ballet are the fires that torment Rochester’s home with a violent and overwhelming red.
In the novel, Jane is the narrator, and the reader gets an intimate look at how she thinks and feels. Martson’s ballet sets the same perspective from the start.
At the very beginning, we find an adult Jane at her lowest point, tormented by male figures and collapsing to the ground. After being rescued by St. John Rivers, the set subtly moves adult Jane upstage so a young Jane can enter downstage, and in this way Jane reflects on her life and starts to tell her story.
When Jane reaches adulthood, the adult Jane returns to stage and assumes the main role. Instead of a detached third-person narrator, the audience is seeing Jane’s thoughts, her emotions, her grief, and her joy.
But the challenge remains: how do you show her passion and determination without using Brontё’s words?
The brilliance of Marston’s choreography is how it not only shows complex emotions but also articulates specific character relationships, which in turn strengthens the characters’ personalities.
The choreography weaves between action and reaction. Each step may indicate a new sentence, and you don’t want to look away in case you miss part of the story.
The movement of a leg or a hand can change the conversation, and the audience becomes familiar with a new language as the characters repeat these movements: like Rochester’s languid pointed foot, relaxed but thoroughly in control, or Mrs. Fairfax’s jittery walk, anxious and eager to assist.
Whether Jane is interacting with her aunt; her childhood friend; Mrs. Fairfax and Adele; or Rochester himself – each character’s movement stays true to their personalities and allows for interesting reactions, whether harmonious or combustible.
I felt this strongly when three characters interacted with each other, like Jane against her aunt and Reverend Brocklehurst, or Jane meeting Mrs. Fairfax and Adele. The characters come alive, and Jane finds a way to assert her unique character no matter who she is with.
A new narrative element Marston added to Jane Eyre is the chorus of “D-Men.” These male company dancers play multiple parts throughout the ballet, as characters in the background, stagehands to change the scene, or even set pieces.
But most importantly, they represent the men that exist in Jane’s life. As Marston explains:
“In general men hold her back, push her down, block her path and intimidate her. She has to move past them and rise above their intimidation.”
When they take on this symbolic force, the dancers swarm around her, like a storm or even a pack of wolves.
Martson notes that Rochester is, in some ways, one of these “men” in Jane’s story, so it’s eerily fitting when Rochester dances with them as his friends.
Sometimes this group swirls around Jane through choreographic cannons, and at other times she partners with them individually, almost tossed from one man to another.
It is a cathartic release when Jane is finally able to push the “D-Men” away from her in Act II, symbolising her refusal to be controlled by someone else and asserting her freedom to make her own decisions.
The crux of the ballet sits on Jane’s relationship with Rochester. These roles require the dancers to carry emotional moments and handle intricate partnering choreography.
Amber Lewis as Jane and Joseph Taylor as Rochester excelled in these demands.
Lewis embodies all of Jane’s thoughts and feelings with nuance: hope, determination, uncertainty, and despair. Taylor is brooding and mysterious, but equally shows his anguish and love for Jane when it matters. Their strong relationship is palpable, not only in their most tender moments, but also in their most conflicting arguments, where they push and shove each other away.
The final pas de deux is the pinnacle of this connection and the love these two characters have for each other. At the conclusion of the story, Rochester becomes blind and is devastated, but Jane returns to his side.
It is a well-crafted and intimate pas de deux. Every touch means more, especially as Lewis keeps his eyes closed for the remainder of the ballet. Now Rochester relies on Jane to guide him.
There may be moments when the ballet leans into the melodramatic, where the emotional reactions feel particularly heavy-handed. But perhaps this dramatic intensity is exactly what the novel shares: Jane and Rochester’s connection is simply too overwhelming to ignore.
Jane Eyre is moody and passionate, but it’s also a joy to watch. The ballet may not be able to replace the original novel, but I doubt this is Marston’s intention. Instead, I believe this ballet is just as fruitful for a literary fan as it is for a novice who has not read the book. Hopefully, it encourages the viewer to read the novel themselves and see what captured Marston’s attention and inspired her.
I know I am curious to find out for myself.
Featured Photo of Northern Ballet‘s Amber Lewis in Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre. Photo Emily Nuttall.
You go into great detail about the emotional portrayal of the characters by the wonderful dancers but fail to even once mention the musical score or Ensemble that execute it. Ballet is nothing more than mime without music-it is the music that creates the atmosphere & emotion. With the current situation at Northern Ballet, where they have effectively dismantled a long-standing brilliant Orchestra in favour of recorded music for some productions & a watered-down version of live music (with fewer players & amplification instead) for other productions, it would have been gratifying to have shown some appreciation & support.
Hi Flossie, thank you for the comment. I understand where you’re coming from. I admit I was ignorant of the situation with Northern Ballet; I do sympathise with the musical artists when cuts like this have been made, and the small ensemble did an excellent job at the performance. Thank you for bringing the point to my attention!