BREATH OF FRESH EYRE
Bloom brings fictional heroine to life in one-woman show
Over the last half century, Claire Bloom has played an abandoned waif in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight, a morphine-addicted mother in A Long Day's Journey into Night, and a "venomous matriarch" opposite Laurence Olivier in television's memorable Brideshead Revisited. But no role has been more meaningful for the acclaimed actress than Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. As Bloom prepares to play Jane Eyre in A Woman Observed, her one-woman show at Blackman Auditorium on November 13, she hopes the story of one of literature's most accomplished heroines will "inspire, fascinate, and enlighten" her audience.
"Charlotte Brontë's heroine Jane Eyre could be the prototype of every romantic pulp fiction," Bloom says. "But Jane Eyre is a work of genius." Indeed, since its first publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has been one of the best-loved and most widely read works of English literature. An abandoned orphan, Jane Eyre is starved and deprived in a charter school, maltreated by an aunt, and psychologically manipulated as a governess. Yet she endures, surviving on grit and obstinacy to become independent, educated, and liberated during a period when women typically stifled their dreams and aspirations. She even finds love, in the unlikely form of Edward Rochester, her complex and forbidding-and inescapable-employer.
"She was an extremely interesting woman," says Bloom, who will read portions of Brontë's novel in a dramatic presentation. "She's very modern, very independent, very witty, very complicated, and very interesting to read to modern audiences of women."
Since beginning her acting career as a teenager, Bloom has brought to life many female characters, literary and real-life, from Juliet to Czarina Alexandra to Florence Nightingale, on stage, in films, and on television. But she detests the word "heroine," preferring instead to think of her characters as ordinary women facing extraordinary circumstances. For Bloom, Jane Eyre's triumph over the turbulence of her life is a tale most women can relate to.
"I picked [a work] that is of interest to modern women," Bloom says. "I'd like the audience to leave having been entertained, having listened to a good read, and having been fascinated by the story and the character of the woman."
Patricia Claire Bloom was born in London in 1931 and made her debut in 1946 as Private Jessie Killigrew in It Depends on What You Mean. A year later she played Ophelia at Stratford-on-Avon opposite alternating Hamlets Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann. She was twenty when she played the leading role in Charlie Chaplin's 1952 film Limelight. She was famous at age twenty-one.
Just a few of her other films are The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Mighty Aphrodite. On television, she starred as Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited. On stage, she has appeared in A Doll's House, Ivanov, and The Cherry Orchard. She won three major English theatrical awards in 1974 for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Bloom has also performed recitals of literary works to the accompaniment of several leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the London Philharmonic.
Tickets to A Woman Observed are $20, $7.50 for Northeastern students. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Call the Northeastern ticket office at 617- 373-2247.
- Meghan Irons
Trouble in Mind November 1-2 and 7-9, Studio Theater, Curry Student Center, 8 p.m. Emotions explode as members of a New York City theater company grapple with racism in the 1950s. $10; N.U. students $8. 373-2247.
Boy x Man November 7-10, 14-17, 21-23, Boston Center for the Arts Black Box Theater. A boy grows into manhood under the positive influence of a surrogate father. By Ed Bullins, interim director of N.U. Center for the Arts. $15.75. 536-5981.
N.U. Concert Band November 24, Blackman Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. Guest soloist Eric Berlin. Free. 373-2442.
N.U. Orchestra December 2, Curry Student Center Ballroom, 7:30 p.m. Free. 373-2442.
A One-Woman Show Through November 30, African-American Master Artists-in-Residency Program, Jamaica Plain. Artist Gloria Baynes displays her latest work. 373-3139.
Marion Hammer, president, National Rifle Association, November 3, Blackman Auditorium, 7 p.m. Sponsored by Ford Hall Forum. 373-5800.
Robert Richardson, Wesleyan University professor and author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire, November 7, Faneuil Hall, 7 p.m. Sponsored by Ford Hall Forum. 373-5800.
Boston Area Colloquium on Feminist Theory November 7, Frost Lounge, 8 a.m. "Feminist Interdisciplinary Collaborations," a graduate consortium. 373-4984.
Community Empowerment: Information, Monitoring, and Advocacy in Challenging Times November 12, Curry Student Center, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Topics include welfare reform, community development block grants, and ways to monitor federal and state funds. Sponsored by the Urban Law and Public Policy Institute. $75; N.U. students $10 (including lunch). 373-8202.
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Maureen and Richard J. Egan Engineering/Science Research Center Dedication October 24, 10:30 a.m. Reception to follow. 373-2521.
John A. and Marcia E. Curry Student Center Dedication November 4, noon, Curry Student Center. 373-5850.
Roger M. and Michelle S. Marino Recreation Center Dedication November 21, 11 a.m. Reception to follow. 373-2521.
John A. Curry Testimonial Dinner December 13, Matthews Arena, reception at 6 p.m., dinner at 7. An evening honoring Northeastern's past president. $20. 373-5850.
Kwaanza Celebration December 6, African-American Institute, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; ceremony in the Curry Student Center, 5 to 9 p.m. 373-4919.
Call Joanne Murphy or Maureen Feeley, 373-3186.
November: Sigma Epsilon Rho Honor Society, November 15, Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Massachusetts, 2 p.m. College of Business Administration, new product development seminar, November 15, Dodge Hall, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.; lunch, November 21, 450 Dodge Hall, noon. Alumnae Club, communicating and negotiating workshop, November 2, Egan Engineering/Science Research Center, 9 a.m. Pharmacy, November 2, Curry Student Center Ballroom, 5:30 p.m. Manhattan, cigar night, November 7, Nat Sherman's, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, 6:30 p.m. Southeast Florida, reception, November 15, Holiday Inn, Palm Beach Gardens, 8 p.m. Rhode Island, hockey reception, November 23, Providence, 5 p.m. Connecticut, basketball reception, November 25, Storrs, Connecticut, 6 p.m.
December: Greater Boston, annual alumni benefit gala, December 5, Trattoria Il Panino, Boston, 7:30 p.m. New Hampshire, hockey tournament reception, December 28, Hanover, 6 p.m. Manhattan, basketball game reception, December 30, Piscataway, New Jersey, 6 p.m.
