Beyond Jane Eyre

Although Charlotte Brontë’s Villette has long been overshadowed by Jane Eyre—its “more popular younger sister,” in Sara Gmitter’s words—the 1853 novel takes the spotlight at Lookingglass Theatre next month in a world premiere adaptation written by Gmitter and directed by Tracy Walsh. 

Based on a period of bereavement, homesickness, and unrequited love in Brontë’s own life, Villette traces the journey of English protagonist Lucy Snowe to a fictional, French-speaking city where she builds a new life as a teacher at a girls’ boarding school. 

“It’s her last novel, and I think it’s her best one,” said Gmitter, an artistic associate at Lookingglass, in a joint interview with Walsh, one of the theater’s ensemble members. According to Gmitter, the bookis more psychologically complex and mature than Jane Eyre. “Villette is so much more realistic, and so much more grounded in real, lived human experiences that we can all relate to—that poignant feeling of unrequited love that Lucy feels and that sense of wanting to make a place for herself.”

Villette2/8-4/23: previews 2/8-2/17 Wed-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; opens Sat 2/18 6:30 PM, then Tue-Wed 7 PM, Thu 1:30 and 7 PM, Fri 7 PM, Sat 2 and 7 PM, Sun 2 PM; Sun 2/19 6:30 PM only; Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan, 312-337-0665, lookingglasstheatre.org, $50-$75

Walsh added that this novel is special because Lucy finds happiness, not through a “Hollywood-style” makeover, but rather through the personal connections she finds as she works to achieve a successful career and a home of her own. “She’s made a whole life for herself,” Walsh said. “It’s not a story where love saves her—where she suddenly has a physical transformation and becomes physically desirable to everybody.”

With most editions of the book clocking in at 500 pages or more, adapting it for the stage is an exercise in selectivity. Gmitter took Lucy’s first-person narration as a starting point for the play, which is also told from her perspective. 

“What would Lucy do if it’s a play? She’s only going to show us the characters that we absolutely need and the scenes that we absolutely need,” Gmitter said. “What does this audience, this night, need in order to go on the emotional journey that she wants them to have?”

One of Gmitter’s priorities for the adaptation was conveying Lucy’s sense of humor, which surprised her when she first read the novel. “Lucy is so funny sometimes—the observations that she makes, the way that she calls nonsense nonsense, and the way that she’s so honest but in this wry way that is also so clever.”

Her complex inner life was another key quality to get across in the play. “Just because Lucy doesn’t have all the experiences that a typical romantic heroine might have, she still has all these feelings, and she still has so many thoughts,” Gmitter noted. 

“The language that she has in the book is so beautiful,” she added. “We can’t have all of the beautiful words [in the play]. Fortunately, we have an amazing actor [Mi Kang] who can show us the beautiful words with her face and with the way that she holds herself.”

Kang leads a cast of six, most of whom are new to working with this playwright and director. “We had the best time assembling this cast,” said Walsh. “Sara and I agreed that we would know the people when we saw them because they would be the people who were these characters.”

“They’re an incredibly talented group, and they understand the play really well,” she continued. “You can tell when somebody gets the play, and this group of people just knocked it out of the park in their auditions.”

Gmitter added that it was important to find actors who could create a character that audiences would love to watch “even when they’re being awful.” She explained: “Some of them do some things that are not so kind, but you still love these characters because they’re so rich and they’re so deep.”

When it came to designing the production, Walsh and Gmitter were grateful to have plenty of time to meet with their designers—who are usually booked on multiple shows simultaneously—and work through the play together. 

“The design concept is that, rather than being a literal representation of a 19th-century world, it’s more of a psychological representation,” Walsh explained. “[It’s] warm, beautiful, compelling, psychological, and constantly transforming itself.”

Similarly, the costumes (designed by Mara Blumenfeld) are inspired by “a 19th-century silhouette,” but without the signature bell skirts of the era. One reason for this change is practical; there are four women characters in the play, and the space on stage is limited. “If everybody’s got the giant skirt on, there’s no way everybody’s going to fit,” Walsh said. 

“Because we made the decision to not make them specifically period-correct, we could play around with pulling in different kinds of looks, so the costumes look fantastic,” she added. “They look from another time, but they don’t look from any time in particular.”

In another departure from interpreting this period drama literally, Walsh and Gmitter decided the actors should speak in their own accents even though all the characters are British or from a fictionalized Belgium. The only exceptions are lines that the Francophone characters deliver in their native language; the actors have worked with a dialect coach on these. 

All the actors auditioned with and without foreign accents, and “everyone we saw was fantastic,” said Walsh. “But when we had them drop their accents and just be themselves, suddenly we were able to get this really honest window into who they were as actors. Then we just knew—this person is Monsieur Paul [Lucy’s love interest] or Madame Beck [headmistress of the school where Lucy works].”

“Unless the accent is necessary as part of the storytelling—especially since we’re telling a story that’s not set in the present day—it’s one more little excuse for the audience to think, ‘Oh, this is not now; this is not here. This is an adaptation of an old novel,’” added Gmitter. “If it’s [the actors’] own accents, it’s that much closer to what’s real and what’s present for the audience.”

Ultimately, Gmitter and Walsh want audience members to feel a personal connection with the resilient heroine of Villette and to be inspired by her remarkable story. “My hope, honestly, is that there are people who come out of the theater feeling the way I felt the very first time I read the book, when I was blown away by how much this, at the time, 150-year-old book was speaking so directly to me in a way that other books hadn’t,” Gmitter said. 

“For me, the message of resilience is so important,” added Walsh. “Lucy loses so many people; she struggles. She has to start her life over in a new place, with every obstacle in her way and nothing to help her.” 

“It’s such a great reminder that, at the end, she’s content,” Walsh concluded. “To take stock of what you have and to say, ‘This is a good life; it’s the life I have, and I’m going to find joy in it’—for me, that’s a really powerful message that Lucy shares, and I hope that resonates with the audience.”

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