Theater: Upstairs, Downstairs

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None of this can dull a fine performance by James Barbour, a magnetic and strong-voiced Rochester. With his flowing hair and smoldering passion, he can at least be thankful this show grabbed him before Jekyll & Hyde. But Marla Schaffel, as Jane, fares less well. Despite a lovely voice, she seems altogether too poised and polished (not to mention too pretty) from the outset. Her desire for Rochester remains something we must take on faith, and her character, for all the gothic doings around her, seems to change little from beginning to end. And that, gentle reader, is something Jane Eyre cannot do without.

--By Richard Zoglin

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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