The day, theatre, and audience were all conducive to a performance of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre"; the first was wet and sombre like the moorland wastes of Yorkshire, the second complementary to the Victorian setting, and the third the stiff, conservative type of people like those most shocked by the rebel novel in 1847. Not that the audience did not laugh in the wrong places at the nineteenth-century sentiment; not that they weren't amused at Jane Eyre's maidenly chastity: the way she folded her hands when she sat down before her master and was careful that the needles were stuck firmly in her knitting as Rochester seized her in his arms; but it seemed the Boston of 1937 was mildly astonished at Jane's spirit of independence, her hatred of self-righteousness, and love of truth.

So brilliant is Katharine Hepburn as Jane Eyre that the critic, even, must admit he forgets the part of the flery heroine is being played by an actress and not by Jane Eyre. Possersed herself with a rebellious and independent nature, she makes the character real and vivid. As her lover, the haughty, physically powerful Rochester--whose tyranny merely serves to cover a deep tenderness, Dennis Hoey supports Miss Hepburn extremely well. At all times he is her equal as an actor, and no-where can it be said that he is completely outdone by his colleague's superb performance.

The novel "Jane Eyre" will always remain an interesting document, because of its intense individuality in an age when conventionality was the rule and never the exception. To appreciate the greatness of Charlotte Bronie's achievement, it is necessary to realize what audacity she displayed in the face of the stern early Victorian period. She shocked her contemporaries by revealing a heroine consumed with passion and broke the traditional theory that woman could only be the loved and not the lover. Though the situation used in the novel had been used many times before, the theme was radical. The former shows a young woman entering life under social disadvantages, which she overcomes in the end by returning to marry Rochester. The latter is harder to define and can be interpreted in several ways; essentially, it is woman's struggle in literature to be considered as more than chaste and innocent, as an intelligent person who can assert her independence and act upon her own principles; it is the struggle of the Victorian woman to free herself from tradition, a revolution not completed until the turn of the century.

In Helen Jerome's adaptation of the novel there are faults; in fact many errors of judgment. Considering the difficulty under which she labored, the metamorphosing of a nineteenth-century story into a vehicle that will appeal to the calloused audience of today, as a whole it is a creditable job. To make polished sentiment sound convincing to a sentiment-hating public is not easy. At first Miss Jerome starts off on the wrong foot by encouraging the audience to laugh at the florid language, and then later depending on it to grasp the drama when the same language is used in tense moments. But in spite of these inconsistencies, which are gradually being eliminated, "Jane Eyre" is an admirable production and one that should please New York almost as much as Boston.