Helen Sadler as Jane, Felicity Jones Latta as Mrs. Fairfax;

photo: T. Charles Erickson

The small supporting cast do remarkable work playing multiple characters, often as different as you can imagine. Felicity Jones Latta, for example, plays four different roles, as different as can be. She plays Jane's Aunt Reed, the meannest woman imaginable. In this role she is imperious, in love with herself, and unnecessarily cruel to Jane. She is Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper at Mr. Rochester's home, who embraces Jane with a maternal flair. She is the haughty Lady Ingram marketing her own daughter as the "bride of the year." And she is also Bertha Mason, a mad woman bent on the destruction of both Jane and Rochester. Her performances (and she switches back and forth from one to the other) are perfection. 

Equally at home with role switching is Megan Gwyn who plays Mary Ingram, sister of the intended bride of Rochester, a verbally biting young society woman, then the maid-servant Leah, and Diana Rivers, the sympathetic sister of a minister who helps Jane with her recovery from pneumonia and exhaustion. As Mary's older sister, Blanche, an over-confident and marginally cruel, judgemental woman who wants to marry Rochester, and as Bessie, the sympathetic housekeeper, and as the madwoman's watchwoman, Grace Poole the company employs Marie-France Arcilla who keeps each identity crisp and crystal clear, acting them as they should be seen and understood. Truly a remarkable collection of characters as Ms. Arcilla presents them. 

There are also two men who fall into the multiple roles category. Grayson DeJesus plays Jane's cousin John Reed, whose cruelty to his younger cousin is truly insupportable. This is a brief role, but it clearly establishes the trials of the child Jane. He also gets to portray Bertha Mason's brother from Jamaica, a man whose concern for his sister's rights, and in possibly preventing a loss of his own rights, brings humilation and worse into Jane's life. DeJesus also plays the Reverend St. John Rivers, a kind man whose self-serving need could possibly be a mending road for Jane at one point. In this role, in particular, the actor has wonderful opportunities and he makes the most of them in many ways.

Steve Routman plays four parts and though each is brief he has the remarkable facility of making them not just different, but visually making them different heights. Near the end of the play when he appears as John, former manservant to Mr. Rochester, I would have sworn he was at least five inches shorter than he had been as the Priest at the wedding. I think that is wonderful acting.

Meghan Pratt reappears as the other child, Adele Varens, whom Jane is hired to educate in her job as governess. This is a much longer part than Child Jane and Pratt, once again, gives it her all. As a French orphan she has all the verve and excitement of a child. She also has a French accent which was very difficult to cut through and understand, but her physical playing of the role more than accommodated. At the end of the play, after more disasters have occurred to these people, we are left without any understanding of Adele's fate, which has always been a sore spot for me. I tell you this so that you won't be confused about it; this is the way it has always been.