Creating Jane: An exclusive interview with Jane Eyre co-adapter and actor, Charlotte Northeast!

Charlotte is an actor, director, educator, administrator, and writer who called PAC her artistic home for ten years. She is a two-time Barrymore Award winner, and has appeared on numerous area stages including at InterAct Theatre, Lantern Theatre, Act II Playhouse, Theatre Exile, Passage Theatre, Azuka, and Delaware Theatre Company, to name just a few. She is also a Co-creator and performer of the widely lauded The Complete Works of Jane Austen (Abridged).

We asked Charlotte to share some insight into the creation of this new Jane Eyre adaptation, and what it means to inhabit its heroine.

What was the original impetus for adapting Jane Eyre and
creating this show?

Originally, this was conceived as a piece for collaboration with university students. We wanted to produce a show that, in keeping with PAC's history of centering the stories of women (Mary Stuart, Fair Maid of the West, The Captive, Maria Marten to name a few) we thought this was a great vehicle. As we looked into published adaptations, though, we were dismayed to discover that the scripts centered the romance (Rochester's arc) rather than the key relationships Jane forms with the women in her life. 
 
Given the success of our partnership on The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged, it made sense to fire up the team once more to create our own adaptation.

What is your interest in Jane Eyre, and what does it
mean to you to play the role?

My name is Charlotte for a reason. My mother is a Brontë fan and I am named after the writer. When I was little, I was plunked in front of all the great adaptations of the novel and my fifth grade book report was on Jane Eyre. So you could say, I've been building up to this for a while. Jane resonates with me because she is described as 'plain and little' and yet she carves out such a life for herself that, at the time of publication, it was thought scandalous. Not because she does outrageous things but simply because she asks to be treated as she is - a woman of intelligence and curiosity in a world that didn't always embrace that.

I've always been little. I don't generally wear makeup. It's not part of who I am. But I take up space. I probably cross more lines than I should and sometimes people don't expect that. I'm hoping to meld my affinity with Jane with the life that Brontë gives her in the novel and come up with something vital and new.

What do you want audiences to take away from a show that you both helped write and are starring in?

That artists are mercurial. That being an actor and a writer coalesces into something else at a certain point: being a storyteller. That, by being a part of the genesis of the work and then inhabiting the role, I have benefited from seeing the story from all angles. Overall, though, I want them to become lost in the story, just as I was the first time I encountered it. There are so many layers to it, so many thorny questions and perhaps not enough answers, but something to discuss and chew on for the ride home.

How are you preparing for this role?

Combination of pure grunt work and long thinks. The grunt work is hammering the lines in and feeling out the world which can feel so bumpy and awkward at first. The long thinks are how, as a woman looking back on her life and retelling it (which is the framework of the novel), can I best inhabit the memories of Jane while also giving them the perspective of someone in the present? It's a strange juggling act and one I'm still working on.