Edinburgh reviews of Wuthering Heights

Three more reviews of the Birmingham's Repertory Theatre production of April de Angelis's adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which is now being performed in Edinburgh.
Picture: @Manuel Harlan (Source)

The good one:

Wuthering Heights is so called, meaning atmospheric tumult. Thus, the scene is set high on the Yorkshire Moors for a story of stormy passions that has endured 160 years.
Joseph Earnshaw returns to his family, with a prize from his travels to China – a young orphan named Heathcliff. His older brother Hindley despises this intrusion, but between Heathcliff and younger stepsister Cathy an intangible bond is formed. As teens they roam together, wild on the moors. However, society abruptly interrupts these carefree days in the shape of the Linton family, and Cathy’s marriage to their son Edgar. Thus begins tumultuous years of lovelorn passion.
For Heathcliff and Cathy, their ardour burns forever bright, but they can never be united. Cathy famously expresses that her childhood companion is “…more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” In their passion, each seeks revenge for their heartbreak, and so the rift deepens. Eventually, Cathy is driven to insanity and starves to death.
For Emily Bronte’s readers this is half the story, but many productions finish at this point. However, the adapter April de Angelis valiantly continues to show the resolution of this turmoil in the next generation.
April de Angelis uses Lockwood (Simon Coates) to unlock Bronte’s complicated narrative. This pompous character interjects humour into this emotionally-heavy play, “God, the North is grim.” as he is expertly retold the sad tale by Nelly the housekeeper (Susannah York).
As the production is touring, the set is simple and clean, with excellent sound effects providing much of the atmosphere. The ten-strong cast play multiple characters, and each gives a worthy performance. The Yorkshire thang and annunciation seem real, and the accent does not detract from the romantic material.
This production is polished and avid watching. However, to give any criticism, Antony Byrne is vibrant, but perhaps a little senior to play the earlier youthful Heathcliff. There was fluidity and connection between the characters of Heathcliff and Cathy; however my heart did not flutter with theirs!
Well worth a visit! (Rebecca Venn in What's on Stage)

The bad ones:

Beyond the projections on the tilted sky in the final moments, storm clouds aren't much in evidence in April de Angelis's version of Emily Bronte's bodice-ripper. That is quite a feat considering the self-destructive love affair between Cathy and Heathcliff we're asked to witness and assess. There's something old-fashioned about Indhu Rubasingham's Birmingham Rep production, which has to do with its application of "poor theatre" techniques to a well-resourced venture.
Everyone seems to be acting in inverted commas, which makes for levity, but an absence of throbbing passion. It's hard for anyone to avoid appearing highly-strung when putting flesh on material which, on the page, can leave histrionics to the imagination. But to appear anything other than attention-seekers, there needs to be sexual chemistry between the leads. There's little, alas, in Antony Byrne's Heathcliff for Amanda Ryan's Cathy to get worked up about.
Susannah York is a barometer of restraint as Nelly, who frames the play as its narrator and conscience. Even she, however, is left to hang around doing not very much while Simon Coates's Lockwood all but winks at the audience in preparation for the spoiled brat caricature that is Toby Dantzic's Linton. With the wooden doors of Mike Britton's design opening and closing like some psychological fortress, at best this can be viewed as a pop-up book primer, but with so little depth as to appear flat. (Neil Cooper in The Herald)

The atmosphere takes centre stage in this new adaptation for the stage of Emily Brontë's famous novel, which tours to the King's this week.
So much so that the passion of the book is often lost. Which is doubly ironic in an adaptation that takes great store in being faithful to the key narrative details of its source material.
There is little problem on the storytelling count, however. Susannah York is excellent, if sometimes a just a little hesitant in her delivery, as Nelly Dean, the long-term housekeeper at the lonely Wuthering Heights, situated high up on a north Yorkshire moor.
Against her, Simon Coates plays Lockwood, the self-opinionated gentleman who lodges in the nearby Grange. After meeting his landlord Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights his encounters with its strange inhabitants lead him to demand of Nelly the story of who they are and how they came to be like that.
The two are rarely off stage, wandering in and out of the action. Lockwood nearly always as a detached observer, Nelly as both the narrator of what goes on and often an integral part in it.
It is York's skill that ensures the interweaving nest of stories, covering some 30 years, is coherently told, while the atmospheric lighting of the stage ensures that it is the latter which is brought to mind throughout.
What they have to tell, however, is a lopsided affair.
On one side there is Cathy Earnshaw, the beautiful daughter of the house at Wuthering Heights played with a generous mixture of vitality and malevolence by Amanda Ryan, and there is Edgar Linton, the effete and sickly son of the Grange, played by Toby Dantzic. Both create strong, credible characters.
On the other side is Heathcliff, played by Antony Byrne. A foundling taken in by the Earnshaws, he is supposedly Cathy's soul-mate who is devastated when she decides that because her brother has forced Heathcliff down into too lowly a station in life for marriage, she will marry Edgar.
For the story to work, Heathcliff has to be likeable in some way or other. He is, after all, the compelling presence who has a passionate hold over both Cathy and her sister-in-law, Isabella. Unfortunately Byrne's Heathcliff is about as likeable – and fearsome – as a half-baked toad.
There is also the matter – and no small one this – that most of the company seem to have lost their ability to convey emotion without resorting to hysterical shouting.
The overall result is not without its merits and there are some delightfully strong scene-setting moments. It will certainly please the novel's existing fans as it follows the novel's narrative on to the next generation after Cathy's death.
Unfortunately, as it rushes through the plot, picking up on Brontë's dialogue but not getting to grips with her carefully constructed descriptions, it's unlikely to get the novel many new fans. (Thom Dibdin in The Edinburgh Evening News)

Finally, the blogosphere has something to say too. On It's On. It's Gone:

(...) With a simple-yet-effective set and a fine supporting cast, this was a fine introduction to Wuthering Heights, the humour never overbearing or detracting from the drama at its centre. I’m not sure if I’ll be buying a copy of the novel anytime soon but it’s certainly piqued my interest in the full, unexpurgated version. (Jonathan Melville)

EDIT: (07/11/2008)
Another bad review in The Scotsman:

HERE'S a message for anyone contemplating a stage adaptation of a classic novel: if you can't take your own literary heritage seriously, then for heaven's sake leave it alone. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is a grim story without a doubt, but it's also a towering achievement of 19th-century Romanticism, full of that passionate empathy with natural forces, and that fascination with the fierce, the inexplicable and the weirdly supernatural, that represented such a powerful reaction to the grinding economic rationalism of the industrial revolution. Its heroine, Catherine Earnshaw, is a woman laying claim to her own passionate desires in an era when respectable women were allowed no sexual feelings at all; and it has its own quiet humanity and humour in the voice of the old nurse Nelly Dean, a classic unreliable narrator.
So why, given all this rich and romantic material, do writer April De Angelis and director Indhu Rubasingham contrive to put together a stage version that emerges as a cross between a half-hearted Hollywood film and an outright Cold Comfort Farm spoof? The stage is littered with sniggering camp buffoons who send the story up rotten. Antony Byrne's Heathcliff looks more uncomfortable than compelling, surrounded by so much giggling; Amanda Ryan, as a robust and witty Cathy, constantly seems on the verge of collapsing into pure comedy.
The production has just one significant asset, in Susannah York's quiet, beautifully observed Nelly; and Mike Britton's design features some good-looking moorland visual effects. But if you think the North country, its voice, and its weather, are the stuff of easy jokes, then you just don't get Emily Brontë; and you should have the decency to leave her great novel to speak for itself. (Joyce MacMillan)

EDIT (09/11/08)
Turn the Crack posts a good review of the production in German.

Wuthering Heights im King’s Theatre von Edinburgh ist jedenfalls alles andere als das angestaubte Ausgraben einer literarischen Leiche. Das Stück basiert auf dem gleichnamigen Roman der Engländerin Emile Bronte, eine Geschichte von zwei Liebenden, die sich nicht haben können, und einer nach dem anderen (nebst fast allen Familienmitgliedern einer kaputten Sippe) dem Wahnsinn verfällt, säuft, spielt und - letztendlich - stirbt. Der Dramaturg hat sich wirklich größte Mühe gegeben, das Spiel permanent am Laufen zu halten, und selbst die kurzen Umräumphasen auf der Bühne waren so geschickt ausgeleuchtet und mit Musik untermalt, dass sie eigentlich mehr einem Szenenwechsel in einem Film glichen - fließend, reibungslos und atmosphärisch. Besonders der Soundtrack gab der Szenerie noch ein ganzes Stück Authentizität, so dass sich mir die Stimmung jeder Szene tief in mein Herz hineinbrannte. (John)

EDIT (10/11/08)
The Journal gives this production 4 out of 5 stars:

Adapting one of the best-known works of literature into a stage production can be problematic on many levels – die-hard fans will inevitably complain, while a slavish following of every word can lead to accusations of a lack of inventiveness. April de Angelis’s interpretation struggles with neither of these categories, resulting in a sensitive and yet highly innovative production.
Stark and brooding, the set reflects the mood of the performance; the distant whistling of the wind over the moors and the clouded sky are the only accompaniments required to the tumultuous lives explored. Perhaps the most controversial decision is the casting of Antony Byrne as Heathcliff – those wishing for a dark, handsome lead will find him lacking, but looks aside his performance is passionate and multi-faceted. Intimidating and brutal, particularly in his treatment of his wife, the audience can still feel sympathy for him as his portrayal of his character as a mistreated and abused child is so impassioned.
Amanda Ryan gives an impressive performance as Cathy but sometimes emphasises the peevish, childish nature of Cathy’s character more than is necessary. Bad-tempered and abusing those around her, this production brings out the full potential for Cathy’s cruelty and impetuousness.
The narration remains the same as in Brontë's novel, telling the story through the dual narration of Mr. Lockwood (Simon Coates) and Nelly Dean (Susannah York). Lockwood’s comic interludes, with his blustering charm and often-misguided views are a wonderful witty break in this otherwise cheerless tale; his constant presence on the stage reminds us that he, like the audience, is subject to a powerful story over which he has no control.
An intelligent and moving production, De Angelis's Wuthering Heights will not leave fans disappointed – while Brontë virgins might well find themselves converted. (Anna Fenton)

Categories: Theatre, Wuthering Heights