Underdog: The Other Other Bronte

[osprey_archer]

troisoiseaux kindly gifted me a month-long subscription of National Theater at Home for Christmas. I leapt on it like a rambunctious terrier, and at once watched Underdog: The Other Other Bronte.

In some ways I am the perfect viewer for this play, as I have read every published novel by the three Bronte sisters (haven’t ventured into the juvenilia, admittedly), am in the midst of a Charlotte reread, have visited the parsonage at Haworth and the graveyard in Scarborough where Anne is buried, etc.

On the other hand, I am perhaps not the ideal viewer for this play, as my reaction to both Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was, “Wow, the judgement of posterity was so colossally right about these books. They are boring and no one would be reading them if Anne weren’t the Third Bronte Sister.”

So actually I am totally on board with Anne’s reputation as Third and Least Literarily Interesting Bronte Sister! Nodding in agreement every time that Charlotte says something that implies that maybe she doesn’t take Anne’s writing seriously because Anne perhaps doesn’t write as well as Emily and Charlotte! Simply disagree with the play’s basic premise that Anne’s reputation is unjustly low because Charlotte suppressed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall after Anne’s death.

Would it have been kinder and more sisterly if Charlotte let the publisher continue to print editions till the public got tired of the book on its own and let it sink into deserved obscurity? Sure. Do I think it’s a loss to literary history that she did not? No.

Having said that, for a play where I disagree with the basic premise, it was a lot of fun to watch. All three sisters are fantastic, and so is the energy between them, lending emotional weight to arguments about whether they are cooperating or competing or, perhaps, both? because maybe it’s possible for women to have complicated feelings about each other? for sisters to love each other but also feel jealous when one sister achieves the success that the other sister yearns for?

The staging is also amazing (although I was a little sad that the heather moor lasted for about two minutes at the start of the play!). The stage is a circle within a circle, and the outer ring revolves, so that when, for instance, Anne goes out to be a governess, she’s on a sort of treadmill, walking on the outer circle but staying in the same place as she and Charlotte read aloud the letters they wrote to each other.

Aside from the sisters and Branwell (who appears occasional to bewail the fact that he, too, is crushed by gender roles! Would rather paint than support his spinster sisters! Gonna go get drunk about it!), all the bit parts are played by four actors, who also sometimes act as a Greek chorus (quoting from reviews of the sisters’ book, for instance), and perform a lot of the work of a stage crew: striking together coconuts for the sound of the horses’ hooves as Anne and Charlotte head to London, for instance.

All in all, a good time! It didn’t change my mind about Anne Bronte’s literary reputation, but left me with a great enthusiasm to read my upcoming Bronte biographies and also watch more shows on National Theater at Home. This was not exactly what the creators were going for but I feel it was a great success nonetheless.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!! I haven't watched this one yet, but it caught my eye because of your recent Bronteposting.

[osprey_archer]

I hope you watch it sometime! Would love to hear your thoughts.

[asakiyume]

I like your distinction between perfect and idea viewer ;-) I laughed at "The judgment of posterity was so colossally ... RIGHT" because "judgement" and "colossally" just seem always to be paired with "wrong" (kind of like how nothing is ever "riddled with" anything good--only bad things--only reverse the valence) and this was a great sendup of that expectation.

Would rather paint than support his spinster sisters! Gonna go get drunk about it! Ahh, Branwell. There are so many things in life one can get drunk about if one wants to.

[osprey_archer]

At this point in my life I've read a number of books on lists with titles like "Unjustly Forgotten Novels by Women," and I've discovered that these books were often in fact forgotten with great justice. (Which I'm sure would be true if people did lists of Unjustly Forgotten Novels by Men, too. There are a lot of novels that have drifted beneath the sands of time for very good reason!) Posterity often knows what its on about.

One of the Bronte Biographies on my list is Daphne du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte, and I'm very curious to read it because everyone else seems pretty clearly on Team Branwell Sucks.

[asakiyume]

Hmmm, not quite sure that something titled "The infernal world..." is going to contradict that? Though I can see it's maybe aiming for the notion of Luciferian greatness or something.

[osprey_archer]

I'll find out! I was thinking "infernal" more in the sense of "tortured genius," which I suppose overlaps with Luciferian greatness anyway.

[kore]

It's well-written, but highly, highly unreliable. It's really a highly coloured historical novel, not a biography.

[osprey_archer]

My extremely vague knowledge of this book suggests to me that this is Daphne Du Maurier's tribute to one of her blorbos, so I know it needs to be taken with a shaker or two of salt.

[lokifan]

What an interesting review!

I saw Nye at the National Theatre earlier this year and really liked it.

[osprey_archer]

What's that one about?

[lokifan]

I need to post about it really! It's about Bevan Nye, the Welsh politican who basically founded the NHS. It's a play not a musical but imo very much part of the post-Hamilton wave of theatre about specific historical figures and their achievements, often ending with their deaths. It's basically a love letter to the NHS so I predictably wept, lol. Michael Sheen does v good work as Nye imo, and I really liked the relationship with his sister in it, and all the emphasis on working class & union organising and self-education; there's a whole scene where he discovers the existence of a library as a boy and is transformed.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that sounds fun! I'll add it to my longlist. We'll see how many plays I can watch in a month. The next one I want to watch is Medea.

[regshoe]

I wildly disagree about Anne Brontë, but I don't want to argue :) —the point is I'm puzzled by that title. I would have thought Anne was 'the other Brontë' and 'the other other Brontë' would therefore probably have to be Branwell. Is it just like, Charlotte is The Brontë, Emily is the other one and Anne is therefore the other other one? (Is Branwell the other other other one??)

Also it sounds like a really fun play :D

[osprey_archer]

It's entirely possible that I would appreciate Anne Bronte more if I reread her now. But I do think there's a strong case to be made that she is at least a more rarefied taste than Charlotte or Emily, both of whom continue to have hordes of rabid fans.

I think the idea is that Charlotte is The Bronte, Emily is the Other Bronte (Emily fans perhaps not on board with this characterization), Anne is the Other Other Bronte, and poor drunken Branwell is simply a nonentity.

[skygiants]

I don't think The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is boring per se, but when I read it I was so ready to leap into the breach and become an Anne Stan and I too finished it like .... well ...... this was a worthy effort. clearly a book with worthwhile things to Say that is Saying Them. but unfortunately it is true that Anne, as a writer, does not have the same Spark.

[osprey_archer]

There are people whose literary judgment I respect who want #JusticeforAnne! So presumably there is SOMETHING there (beyond the Worthy Effort for a Worthy Cause, I mean). But alas I too just don't feel the spark.