Don't judge the Wuthering Heights lovers

A couple of reviews of Tamasha Theatre's performances of Wuthering Heights in Oldham:

BRONTE gets a Bollywood make-over in this world premiere musical that kicked off an extensive UK tour at the Coliseum over the weekend.
A co-production by the Coliseum and London-based British-Asian theatre company Tamasha, the radical adaptation - by Deepak Verma, aka EastEnders’ Sanjay – swaps the bleak Yorkshire moors for the deserts of north west India and adds a typically lyrical Bollywood soundtrack.
The plot broadly follows the original but with several twists…
Shakuntala, the sassy daughter of kindly spice merchant Singh, falls in love with Krishan, a street urchin who has been rescued and adopted by Singh.
Adolescent love comes up against the barriers of India’s rigid social hierarchies - in the same sorts of ways that Heathcliff and Cathy faced Victorian snobbery. Then, the lovers are parted by wealth and ambition before the final tragic reconciliation.
It’s still a good story, but it’s a pity the cast are so wooden and don’t connect with each other and the audience. And it’s very slackly directed, mystifyingly lacking in pace throughout.
But it isn’t all bad news.
The score is listenable to and though pre-recorded is very well pre-recorded, sung by decent singers and played back through a sophisticated sound system that is, for once, operated by technicians who aren’t stone deaf.
The setting is impressive – a series of sand-coloured ramps and backdrops, skilfully lit to provide highly-varied visual effects.
Most importantly, the idea of combining West-meets-East cultural traditions and aiming to appeal partly to Oldham’s British-Asian community – the marketing has been extensive and specifically targeted – is clearly one that deserves support.
I just wish I could have heartily endorsed the show itself. (Alan Hulme in Asian News)

BOLLYWOOD met Lancashire when the stars of the Coliseum’s latest show took a tour of Saddleworth. The tragic tale of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is famously set in the wild Yorkshire Moors.
But the latest interpretation of the classic play transports Cathy and Heathcliffe to the scorching deserts of Rajasthan in India.
Youtki Patel and Pushpinder Chani — the stars of the show — visited the Denshaw Moors to experience the more traditional setting for the novel.
Oldham audiences have seen Cathy, the heroine, and Heathcliffe, the brooding anti-hero, become Shakuntala, the beautiful and head-strong daughter of merchant Singh, and Krishan, the wild street urchin that Singh adopts.
Thrown together as unlikely siblings, their adolescent play soon turns into tumultuous passion.
But — just like 19th century Yorkshire — Indian society has its taboos and hierarchies, and Shakuntala yearns for the riches and status that only local playboy Vijay can provide.
The show, which runs until March 28, is being co-produced by Tamasha, the award-winning London based-theatre company, founded in 1989, which also commissioned the first production of “East is East”.
The production is influenced by Indian cinema, from brooding black-and-white epics of the 1950s, to colourful contemporary blockbusters. (Oldham News - Picture source)

The Guardian talks about a curious initiative taken by a Cornish library:

A Cornish library is asking readers to vote for the book they most loathe, with residents' most-despised titles to be displayed for all to see. (...)
On learning of the promotion, Morgan said he "rather like[d]" the concept, "mainly because librarians are usually such unutterably tedious, nasal-twanging, tank-top wearing little nerds that if I saw a shelf stacked with stuff they hated, I'd want to read those books immediately".
Foot is now keen to include books hated by the Cornish public in the display, telling local press that he wants "people to be able to say they hate Wuthering Heights or Catcher in the Rye, and not feel guilty".
"People should be able to read anything they like without being judged. In my case, I love Wuthering Heights, but hate Catcher in the Rye, but please don't judge me," he added. (Alison Flood)

The Kansas City Infozine reviews a student performance of Nilo Cruz's Anne in the Tropics:

“Most of the characters in the play cannot read or write, but they can recite lines from ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘Jane Eyre,’ ” [Julie Rae] Mollenkamp [guest director for the production] said. “Back when cigars were hand-rolled and named for the flush-cheeked heroines of the great romance novels, cigar factory workers set aside a portion of their wages to pay someone who would read to them. These velvet-voiced lectors were as carefully selected as the tobacco leaves, and the raised platforms from which they read were as practical as they were symbolic.”

Blog de Libros reviews - in Spanish - Wide Sargasso Sea (Ancho mar de los Sargazos), Wuthering Heights is reviewed by Bookheart, Fragmentsdevida (in Catalan) and As incessantes duvidas de vida (in Portuguese). Cirqueetlivres talks about a 1963 French translation of Emily Brontë's poetry. Suite101 has an article entitled The Locations of Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë's Use of Setting in Wuthering Heights by Elizabeth Gregory.

Categories: Music, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights