Among the great pleasures of 19th-century novels are their length, their breadth, the deep dives into characters’ lives and into the social fabric of the time. It’s almost suicidal to try to stage these stories in just over two hours. Yet that’s what British choreographer Cathy Marston did with Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 Jane Eyre, in a 2016 evening-length ballet now remounted by the Joffrey at the Auditorium Theatre. It’s an act of love, and of daring—for good and bad, a contemporary feminist take on the story.
Though the early duets in the second act falter, and the story of Jane’s would-be husband, St. John Rivers, feels cursory, dutiful, Marston returns to form in the final duet, when Rochester’s blindness completely changes the power dynamic between him and Jane. Just before the quiet end, Marston inflects Jane’s usual isolating, self-protective gesture—clasping her own chest or head—to suggest the mutual support between these two. When she stands with her back to Rochester, touching once again her hands to her face, he takes one of them in his and places her other behind his neck, forming a loop, a never-ending circuit of love.
Through 10/27: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells, 312-386-8905, joffrey.org $35-$199.
