Breathing fresh life into the enduring Brontë family saga
Illustrated Theatre is to be commended for the ambition of its production, but the execution has yet to reach its full potential
Brontë
By Polly Teale
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin
Rating:***
Polly Teale’s bio-drama brings life to three of literature’s greatest heroines, the Brontë sisters, who overcame the patriarchal prejudice of Victorian society that confined women to domestic life. What, the women ask in the play’s expository preface, “if we were married, or died in childbirth?” The answer is clear before they even tell their story: we never would have heard of them at all.