Gothic Girl Summer began this week at Guild Festival Theatre with Brontë: The World Without, a recent play by Jordi Mand.

I laughed loudly for much of the play showing us episodes, a series of scenes from a three-year period in the lives of the three literary siblings Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. And I cried a bit in the last few minutes.

GFT make excellent use of the Greek Theatre at the Scarborough Guild, exploiting the unforgettable space.

Even a talk-back session feels extra-special when it’s done with those classic columns.

Outdoor performances have been particularly challenging this week, between the smoke from forest fires and the unbearable heat, leading to the cancellation of their preview.

When I came to the show I wondered: would it matter whether I knew the novels? Would it matter if I knew the story of their lives? But no it didn’t matter at all, we were watching their stories unfold in the most organic way, their writing almost incidental. Jordi had done remarkable research into the backgrounds of the three sisters, including an actual visit to their home that she described in the talk-back.

I could imagine Jordi’s identification with the three writers and their beginnings. It’s not that we are watching writers, we’re seeing an impoverished family struggling to cope, three sisters with recognizable family dynamics, the oldest taking charge and being bossy to the point of irritating the other two, while each of the younger ones has issues of being understood and heard. For much of the first hour we watched a dark comedy unfold, notwithstanding the horrors of their strained circumstances.

They discover that they have been writing poetry, and begin with a book of poems by the three of them, seeking a publisher for their work using fake male names (Currer, Ellis & Acton Bell, and with the same initials) as they can’t believe they would be accepted using their real names, disclosing their real gender.

The dialogue is modern without any English accent, organic and urgent as any family would be that is coping with the challenges these women faced, fluid between the three.

In her director’s note Helen Juvonen remarks that the play “strips away the mythology to show us the humanity of these three sisters. The play drops us right in the middle of the Bronte household, where we listen to their intimate conversations, their argument and their confessions.”

Helen and her cast live up to the superb text Jordi created, three women who all lived short lives. Hilary Scott was Emily Brontë (1818-1848) who we would know for Wuthering Heights. Lara Lucia was Anne Brontë (1820-1849), who wrote poetry and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Laura del Papa was Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) who wrote Jane Eyre.

Brontë: The World Without continues with Guild Festival Theatre until August 2nd. Click here for tickets and further information.