This musical version of Jane Eyre was written/composed by Patricia York and Jerry Williams and was apparently recorded at Hale Centre Theatre, which I think is somewhere in the US. It stars Jennie Whitlock as Jane and Mark Gollaher as Rochester. Haven’t got the foggiest who either of them are, but it doesn’t matter. They can sing, and that’s really all that matters!
It kind of only has songs and not so much dialogue so I can’t really say how well it reflects the story in full, as the story in full isn’t in there. It’s a soundtrack after all. There is no official tracklisting, so this is from the Enthusiast’s Guide to Jane Eyre Adaptations:
- Lowood
- I Believe
- Prosperity
- To Be Free
- When I Was Green
- Something Here
- Notions
- Something Here (reprise)
- Ghosts
- Between the Lines
- Put Everything In It’s Place
- Miss Wilson
- Despair
- She Can Not Charm Him
- Wild Boy
- The Moors Are A’Callin’
- Proposal
- Explanations
- Farewell
- The Rivers
- I Need A Missionary Wife
- Ferndean
- Finale
It’s very… well, it sounds like a musical. Basically. Like you’d expect it to. It’s weird – a chorus of Lowood girls singing a song, Jane and Edward singing to one another… St. John! Singing, for goodness sake! That’s just wrong. The whole weirdness of it all just made me giggle a bit. Would’ve been fun to see on stage, but alas. There are some catchy tunes, though, and I’ll be listening to it more than once, for sure. I do quite like musicals. 🙂
Here’s a review by someone who’s actually seen it on stage: Eric D. Snider (Hale Centre Theatre, West Valley, 2000)
I was in a small production of this play in 1995 as one of Jane’s cousins. I loved the show and the music. Now that I’ve read the book at an older age, it’s obvious there were major parts of the story left out, but it was a beautiful play. I would love to find the soundtrack to buy it.
Nice. 🙂 I don’t know if it can be purchased anywhere, but check the link in the post to the Enthusiast’s Guide to JE Adaptations – it has a download link.