If you are studying English Literature, or just have a passion for the Victorian novels of the Brontë’s, ‘Underdog: the Otherother Brontë’ should be next up on your list of National Theatre prodigies to attend.
‘Underdog’ explores the relationships of the Brontë sisters beneath their authorial works and any preconceived notions about their sisterhood. Sarah Gordon’s play tackles the competition between the young writers fighting for ‘women’s one spot at the table’. Humorous references to the likes of Byron, Thackeray and Dickens are protested by a defiant Charlotte Brontë (Gemma Whelan) who speaks desperately of her need for fame and literary immortality - to the despair of a ‘mouse-like’ Anne Brontë (Rhiannon Clements).
Quite unfathomably, the play does not include much of Emily Brontë (Adele James), rather projecting her character as someone to chide Charlotte on not wanting to share her authorial stardom, despite being the quite ingenious writer of ‘Wuthering Heights’, also overshadowed by the likes of ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’.
When taking our seats my partner and I were struck - Gemma Whelan herself emerged from the sides of the theatre and introduced herself as ‘Charlotte Brontë’ in a palpable Yorkshire accent. She makes her way around the audience asking us our favourite Brontë novels, scoffing when not written by herself (‘Villette’ earning a ‘Great choice!) The Dorfman Theatre was beautifully set with a mound of wild flower growth inspired most likely by the natural flora of Yorkshire, violently pulled to reveal the dark undergrowth as a ceiling for the commencing play. The stage featured a turning disk at the centre used humorously and quite perfectly to encapsulate the Brontës physical search for their place in the authorial world, a disco ball dropping down when visiting London among literary high lives.
The second act of the play becomes heavy, taking on the death of Anne Brontë and exposing how Charlotte edited Emily’s poetry after death, and refused a reprint of ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. Charlotte Brontë is consumed by the death of her sisters and her strive for fame and at times masculinity, culminating in a very ‘Gen-Z’ haunting inclusion of pop super-star Olivia Rodrigos ‘feminine rage’ anthem, ‘all-american bitch’.
‘Underdog’ explores a reality where girls are not always supporting other girls and competition is essential to achieve. The Brontë sisters are seen like never before leaving to question who the real ‘OtherOther Brontë’ is. Anne, possibly, dying young and never achieving the same fame as that of her sisters, or Emily publishing only a sole novel, or even Charlotte, overshadowed by her publishers and her ‘one-hit wonder’ with Jane Eyre. Or perhaps director Natalie Ibu hoped to show that each sister spent a life trying to separate themselves from each other, yet are overall entangled by more than a last name. Definitely a must-see, ‘Underdog’ runs at the National Theatre through to the 25th of May.
