PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Tobacco Factory, Bristol (Tue 4-Sat 8 Oct)

THEATRE On the face of it, it’s a bold and brilliant idea: to meld the claustrophobic world of Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters’ with the claustrophobic world of the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The template certainly seems to fit: London becomes a substitute for the Prozorov sisters’ much-desired Moscow; the self-destructive, alcoholic Branwell Brontë can stand in for their ne’er-do-well brother Andrei; and Branwell’s indiscreet love affair with his snobbish and domineering employer, Mrs Robinson, echoes Andrei’s ill-fated relationship with Natalia. Documentary evidence suggests, in fact, that Chekhov himself may well have derived some of the inspiration for his 1900 play from the real-life situation of the Haworth-imprisoned Brontës.

Which is all well and good – except that, in practice, writer Blake Morrison’s attempt to re-read the Brontës’ story via Chekhov loses its way shortly after the interval and the undoubted verve and brio of Northern Broadsides’ production (directed, as ever, by the indomitable Barrie Rutter) can’t disguise the serious structural problems which make the second half of this play something of an endurance test. Just when you get the picture that everyone who’s been drawn to the unconventional creative thrum of the Brontë household (the alcoholic doctor, the pretentious schoolteacher and the honey-tongued curate) is now abandoning the sisters to their isolated vigil in Haworth (via a moving and rather beautiful scene in which Charlotte, Emily and Anne share their fears about the future, their thoughts on writing and samples of their own poetry), along comes a galumphing exposition in which everyone does indeed abandon the Haworth parsonage in a series of protracted and not very illuminating goodbyes. Unfortunately, and perhaps more unforgivably, when focused through the lens of a Chekhovian drama, the protracted real-life drama of the Brontës starts to look like mere melodrama.

That said, you’d be hard pressed to fault the production itself. If the script and concept seem laboured at times, the characterisation – particularly of the three sisters themselves – is both solid and nuanced. As Emily, Sophia di Martino is searingly witty and vulnerable; Catherine Kinsella endows Charlotte with a paradoxically pragmatic romanticism; while Rebecca Hutchinson’s Anne eventually finds the strength in herself to reject the well-intentioned but nonetheless odious advances of the local doctor (John Branwell on fine form). In comparison, perhaps, Becky Hindley’s Mrs Robinson and Gareth Cassidy’s Branwell seem a tad less rooted and rounded, but that’s almost certainly down to the writing rather than the playing. (Tom Phillips)

Copyright Tom Philiips 2011

Picture: Nobby Clark