It’s astounding that the Brontë sisters — Emily, Charlotte and Anne — ever wrote anything.
“Brontë,” now on stage at Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre, makes it clear what a struggle it was to be a woman in the Victorian era. They were not expected to write, go to a library or even read. Marriage was the only option, and that wasn’t a great one — basically you are owned by your husband.
To make life harder for the sisters, they lived in an isolated part of England with their clergyman father, were always on the edge of poverty, and death and despair was all around them.
Yet, those sisters created masterpieces (originally published under male pseudonyms): “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte, “Wuthering Heights” by Emily, and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
“Brontë,” penned by English playwright Polly Teale, takes us into the home the women shared with their father and brother and jumps back and forth in time. We see them as children making up stories and games that fuel their vivid imaginations, as young women bitter about their sex’s lot in life, and as successful authors.
The Scoundrel and Scamp production, directed with a sure hand by Bryan Rafael Falcón, has a solid cast. Dawn McMillan’s Charlotte slipped right into the role of the bossy big sister; Allison Akmajian made Emily’s suppressed rage and desire palpable; and Myani Watson shone as the self-righteous Anne. Hunter Hnat, who rarely disappoints, played several roles, including the drunken brother, Branwell. Tony Caprile’s principal role was as the father, Patrick, but he took on a number of other characters, giving them all distinction.
The trouble with this play is the script. Skipping back and forth in time made the story convoluted and confusing. Elizabeth Falcón was tasked with playing characters from the women’s novels, who appeared to underscore what the women were writing. You know, the free-spirited Catherine from “Wuthering Heights,” the mad Mrs. Robinson from “Jane Eyre.” The device was overwrought and kind of annoying. Although the Brontë family was fascinating, this over-long play never made us care much about them.
That said, this production was packed with energy and talent. That almost made up for a weak script.
It runs through Saturday, March 11, at Scoundrel and Scamp, 736 N. Fifth Ave., in the Historic Y.
Tickets are $30, with discounts available. For more information or to make reservations, call 520-448-3300 or visit scoundrelandscamp.org.
There are an overwhelming amount of ways to dress up for Halloween, but nothing can top the most popular Halloween costume in the U.S., at least according to the internet, and that's the witch.Witches aren't just Halloween icons; they've become an icon of feminist empowerment too. There's a growing community around witchcraft today, from casual interest in the culture and wellness practices to self-identified practicing witches casting spells.In the Middle Ages, people were somewhat okay with the idea that some people had "magical" expertise, according to Marion."In most villages, there would be at least a couple of people who thought that they could undertake magical healing, but from the Tudor period onwards, there's an increasing concern that people who have some kind of magical or magical knowledge might well be in league with the devil," Marion said. "Of course, women didn't have medical training in the way that men did in that period, so a woman who said she could heal your child might be thought to be suspicious."In the 15 and 1600s, there were waves of brutal witch hunts. Thousands of people in Europe were tried and killed over suspected witchcraft on a much bigger scale than the infamous Salem Witch Trials in America, which killed about 20 people. Legally speaking, unmarried and older women were often easier targets to blame since they weren't "protected" by a husband or a father. That might be why the image of witches gets associated with older women, living in isolation.But eventually, witches became less of a real-world threat and more of a folklore figure."You get this this elderly crone who maybe has even a green face who stands out from other human beings, maybe wears a pointy hat travels around on a broom, has a black cat with her," Marion said. "All of these things start to come in really in the Victorian period, and you even start to see them appearing on things like greetings cards."SEE MORE: Halloween Costumes Have Grown Into A Billion-Dollar IndustryBy the 20th century, there were positive portrayals of witches.One of the biggest turning points was "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," published in 1900 and later adapted into the iconic film in 1939.It's worth noting the book had an interesting feminist legacy itself. The author, Frank Baum, was a womens' rights advocate and son-in-law of one of the co-founder of The National Woman Suffrage Association, who even wrote her own history of witchcraft to dispel stereotypes."The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" even got banned in some libraries for having women in strong leadership roles, and as late as 1986, it came under fire by some for its "depiction of benevolent witches."But by then, witches had already reached a cultural high point in popular culture. TV shows like "Bewitched," "Charmed" and "Sabrina: The Teenage Witch" showed witches as protagonists. This correlated with the rise of second and third-wave feminism, which isn't a coincidence.Stories of women having power and agency were being celebrated more, instead of being met with suspicion or seen as a threat. Common witch tropes, like the old, aging woman pitted against the young ingnue, grew outdated or were sometimes even subverted.It's no wonder that today, modern witchcraft and Wicca culture fosters and embraces an association with feminist empowerment.U.S.-based communities have even adopted witchcraft as a symbol of political resistance. Interest in witches has soared since the 2016 presidential elections, when groups of over 10,000 "neo-pagans" united to cast spells to limit President Donald Trump's power. "Witchcraft and its portrayal in popular culture is so interesting because it really tracks the progress of feminism," Marion said. "It makes us think about what we think about women in the society around us. The witch is so often a figure for the feminist or for the ordinary woman in the street. She sits in that ground between real history and fantasy, and I think that gives the witch her cultural energy. I think it's it's an ongoing fascination that which is going to be with us for a very, very long time."
