Theater review: Guthrie plumbs inner depths in not-so-plain version of 'Jane Eyre'

Ushers handed out long-stemmed roses to patrons at the end of Friday night's opening performance of "Jane Eyre" at the Guthrie Theater.

The aromatic flowers, plus free-flowing champagne and lively music, extended a feeling from the play into the lobby. It was as if we had been guests at a different kind of production -- a wedding.

Yet, as "Jane Eyre" began with faintly ominous rumblings and with Jane Senior (played with warmth by Margaret Daly) narrating the story of her bitter childhood as it was acted out by a group of young actors, I did not imagine that mirth would be one of the by-products of the evening.

For one thing, the staging, by John Miller-Stephany, seemed at first to be quite remote, with much of the action taking place at the back of the stage -- a physical distance from the audience that matched the temporal one of the 19th-century setting. It seemed like we might be in for a historical diorama writ large on the Wurtele Thrust.

For another, scenic and costume designer Patrick Clark has chosen a mostly gray palette for the production. The sense of oppression that lends, while thematically apt, suggested an adaptation of a dreary but necessary Chekhov play rather than Alan Stanford's streamlined adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel of throbbing hearts.

Yet as lead actors Stacia Rice, who depicted Jane as a young adult, and Sean Haberle, as her would-be love, Rochester, dug deeper into their characters, the production drew us in. In portraying a self-controlled and consistent Jane, Rice used gestures and articulation to subtly reveal how a once-abused girl can imagine the possibility of love as an adult. Haberle gave Rochester a gruff, quaking embodiment. We get a sense from his muscular portrayal that Rochester's domineering persona is a cover for his ills.

The play accomplishes two beautiful things simultaneously: transporting us into the lives of characters created more than a century ago and making their story, even with some weird elements, feel contemporary.

Part fairy tale, part Gothic romance, Brontë's narrative carries us through the experiences of the principled and plain Jane Eyre. A put-upon orphan, she is first oppressed by her abusive relations. She lands in a religious charity school where discipline is at the tip of a cane. She survives that experience.

Jane accepts a job as a governess at Rochester's estate. She falls for him and he for her, but he's a man of mystery and tormenting secrets (suggested at times by composer Andrew Cooke's melancholy and feedback-sounding score).

The Guthrie's "Jane Eyre" succeeds because the main characters' inner lives are so palpably and vividly depicted by Haberle and Rice, who have a strong chemistry.

Rice's Jane is a character of simplicity and grace. Jane often is compared to a bird and to a nun, and Rice gives her a fluttery grace.

There are also smaller but potent performances by Barbara Bryne as Mrs. Fairfax, on the domestic staff of the Rochester estate; Charity Jones as a haunting, bat-like figure from Rochester's past; Barbara Kingsley as the sneering and sibilant Lady Ingram; and Nathaniel Fuller as the cruel and hypocritical Mr. Brocklehurst.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390

Rohan Preston • rpreston@startribune.com