Writer and Director: Harry Harding
Room One Theatre Company brings us an insight into the fraught home circumstances of the Brontë family, the crowding into Haworth Parsonage of a large number of competing egos (and sister Anne never even gets on stage) and the tribulations they suffered due to brother Branwell’s self-destructive investigations of laudanum and brandy. Emily loves him in spite of himself while Charlotte, who took over running the household after their mother’s early death, is considerably less forgiving.
The set-up is plausible, the nicely dressed set is convincing, and the acting of Katie Hart as Charlotte and Lillie Prowse as Emily is outstanding. The overall effectiveness is badly affected by technical issues – the lights are pointed in strange directions and brighten and dim without much relevance to the action on stage and the complex sound design is played at a volume that makes it almost impossible to make out what is being spoken, which is probably Branwell’s poetry, and so fairly crucial.
It is Branwell who poses the largest problem for the piece. Griffin James, who plays the character, speaks very softly and manifests Branwell’s substance abuse with a jitteriness that is hard to watch. The director Harry Harding, who also wrote the play, needs to choreograph the actor’s progress much more strictly. Branwell doesn’t melt down so much as he ambles round the stage picking at stuff, and the stuff includes his sister Emily, which is eye-opening and surprising, and needs to be given considerably more consequence. The two sisters are played with much more precision and much more power, which is dramatically appropriate but leads to a disconcertingly unbalanced stage picture.
This is an intriguing piece of theatre, with a very well-worked final scene that puts all the preceding biography into a new light. It has two powerful performances from Hart and Prowse, and a tonne of revelatory moments. More volume, more precision, and some cold-eyed editing would make this a piece to treasure.
Runs until 10 August 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Informative, intriguing, inaudible
