The Brontës on stage

A few news outlets review the London performances of Cathy Marston's Wuthering Heights ballet.

The Stage:

A new full-length ballet is a rare species. One created by a female choreographer resides in the endangered category. While there are a number of brilliant classical and contemporary female choreographers around, their work is usually at best given studio space. While Cathy Marston’s Wuthering Heights for Bern Ballet is not gracing the main auditorium, at the Royal Opera House, it is indeed a full-length piece. Unfortunately, it would fare far better as one third of a triple bill.
Rather than sticking to the original narrative, the piece probes the dynamics between the five central characters: Cathy, Heathcliff, Hindley, Edgar and Isabella. Although this ensures some fascinating character interplay as relationships emerge, blossom and flounder between the five, it also confuses an already complicated non-linear narrative.
The whole cast are technically superb, beautifully rehearsed and fully engaged with their characters at every moment. Jenny Tattersall as Cathy is outstanding in her paradoxical combination of strength and vulnerability, whilst Gary Marshall as Heathcliff manages to make every limb, every movement, smoulder with intensity. Eric Guillard as Cathy’s jealous brother, Hindley, is utterly compelling, yet Chien-Mind Chang (as Edgar) and Hui-Chen Tsai (as Isabella) both lack stage presence despite their obvious technical prowess. The excellent corps de ballet, dancing as ‘Echoes’ of Cathy and Heathcliff, move as though compelled by some wild inner force - limbs flailing, bodies tumbling in crazed, seemingly sporadic, synchronisation.
David Maric’s score - a blend of electronic sounds and live double-bass solos, played with concentrated passion by Mich Gerber - is hauntingly evocative, brilliantly echoing the vastness and menacing presence of Bronte’s infamous moors. Stretched over 70 minutes, however, the persistent beat begins to feel less like an underlying pulse and more like an irritating clock.
Jann Messerli’s set is a model of minimalism and is incorporated well into the choreography - save, perhaps, for the four chairs. However clever it may seem to use one prop or piece of set in a hundred different ways, if used too much the symbolism that the object accumulates becomes confused and, as a result, so does the audience.
Although Marston’s Wuthering Heights contains some absolute gems of choreography, they would sparkle brighter if 30 minutes was shaved off the running time. (Sarah Wilkinson)

The Times gives it 2 stars out of 5:

As a choreographer, Cathy Marston has in recent years revealed a taste for literary sources. In 2005 she staged Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Linbury; three years later she was commissioned by Northern Ballet Theatre to adapt Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Now comes Wuthering Heights for Bern: Ballett, the Swiss company she currently directs. But giving your ballet a famous title sets up certain expectations of narrative and characterisation, expectations that here fall short. For despite focusing on just five characters and dealing with only the first half of the book, Marston’s 70-minute ballet is an elliptical and bewildering evocation of a generalised emotional turmoil devoid of specific dramatic hooks.
Marston covers herself by describing it not as an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel but as “a personal response inspired by its central characters, Catherine and Heathcliff”. In addition to the iconic lovers the cast includes Hindley (Cathy’s cruel brother), Edgar (her rich husband-to-be) and Isabella (Edgar’s sister), though it takes a while to figure out who is who. The confusion is partly caused by having “Echoes of Cathy and Heathcliff” dotted around the stage, acting as an abstraction of their passions, and partly by the choreography’s inability to differentiate between male characters (do we really need Hindley at all?). Quite rightly, Marston focuses on the selfish Cathy and her conflicting desires. We see her cavorting on the moors with Heathcliff and pursuing her infatuation with Edgar. In this, Marston achieves some of her most emotive and streamlined choreography, though the repetitious nature of its rolling momentum makes one yearn for a more distinctive punctuation.
What she does deliver is a wild and suffocating atmosphere in which emotions are as out of control as the storms that lash the countryside. Dave Maric’s music, scored for double bass and electronics, is an effective partner. Jann Messerli’s set comprises several large blocks that suggest the physical features of the moors and the inner darkness that entraps the characters. Jenny Tattersall brings vivid colouring to Cathy despite the limitations; Gary Marshall broods impressively as Heathcliff. (Debra Craine) (Picture source)

The London Evening Standard:

Barely a week after Tamasha’s Bollywood song and dance version of Wuthering Heights finished at the Lyric Hammersmith, along comes a dance adaptation of Emily Brontë’s gothic tale of wind and misery at the Linbury. It’s by Cathy Marston, the dancer-turned-choreographer who trained at the Royal Ballet before becoming director of Bern Ballet.
Marston focuses on the first half of Brontë’s book, deftly conveying the central relationship between Cathy (Jenny Tattersall) and Heathcliff (Gary Marshall) in a series of powerful duets.
There are also unnerving sequences for Cathy and her brother Hindley, Cathy and her husband-to-be Edgar, and for Heathcliff and Edgar’s sister Isabella, all of which remind you that thwarted emotions have negative externalities.
This 70-minute Heights is not without problems. As well as the five main characters, Marston uses another seven dancers to amplify Cathy and Heathcliff’s emotions. This is gilding the gilding, as the unhappy pair hardly need help expressing themselves. The result is an emotional pitch set at high and a diminution of your sympathy.
Another niggle is the costumes, which are similar beige dresses for the women and beige trews for the men so it’s tricky telling one character from the next. There’s also choreographic drift and the perennial problem of taking Heights seriously when its hero, whose name includes the words heath and cliff, wanders emotionally around and jumps passionately off.
Much better is the almost non-existent set (a clever piece of counter-design), and Dave Maric’s jagged score which provides both meteorological mood and emotional daggers. (Sarah Frater)

The ballet is also reviewed on the blog Life in the Cheap Seats. The ballet is in London until Saturday.

But that's not all there is Brontë-related on stage. The Journal (Newcastle) writes again about Tamasha's Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights at Northern Stage until tomorrow.
In adapting a classic Victorian novel for the stage – especially Emily Brönte’s tale of stormy passion on windswept Yorkshire moors – you wouldn’t imagine India would naturally spring to mind as a backdrop.
But a bold move by writer Deepak Verma and British Asian theatre company Tamasha sees tortured lovers Heathcliff and Cathy uprooted to 18th Century Rajasthan – where, apparently, the show’s designer headed for ideas before creating costumes and sets for this Bollywood-style musical.
And from the opening yellow- hued scenes of sand dunes, camels and the sounds of an Indian market, they show that bold is beautiful.
Whirling desert sandstorms, vibrant colours, Indian music and breezy songs – lip-synched (very well) in true Bollywood fashion – conjure up a big-scale setting to match the epic nature of the tale.
Youkti Patel takes on the role of Cathy (here called Shakuntala) - whose father adopts street urchin Krishan (Heathcliff) played by Pushpinder Chani.
And they capture the raw intensity of Brönte’s lovers, from their young, carefree days to their reunion after Shakuntala marries their rich neighbour.
Like the film and TV versions we’ve seen, this necessarily cuts out many characters plus the latter part of the book, but it never loses sight of the heart of the story.
And the East-West fusion, which almost seamlessly interweaves Hindi phrases, cleverly finds parallels between the restrictive class consciousness of the 1847 novel and the Indian caste system; and between ideas of fate and reincarnation.
The Nelly Dean and Joseph characters, who acted as the book’s narrator and moral compass, are here too, with Rina Fatania’s Ayah a delightful earth mother figure.
With great performances all round, this ambitious production is quite an achievement.
I loved the book, which clearly stands the test of time, but even as stand-alone theatre this is a gem: a powerful story beautifully told, with a little twist at the end which seems entirely fitting and leaves a lump in the throat. (Barbara Hodgson)

The Lichfield County Times announces what FineLine's Young Actors will be playing at The Sherman Playhouse (Connecticut) on June 6 and 7.

The final piece takes a more serious turn with "Jane Eyre: Life at Lowood." This performance looks at Jane Eyre's teenage years, with some retrospection on her younger years; life as an unwanted and abused child does not diminish her hope.

And to wrap up our unofficial stage section, a more remote review, as the Brontë connection is added by the reviewer from Liverpool Confidential when writing about the play Lost Monsters.

The production is blessed with a great design from Simon Daw, a grim house which seems straight out of the Brontes. . . (Phil Key)

The Guardian finally reveals the top five fictional characters. Among the heroines we find our very own Jane:

Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte)
There's more to Charlotte Bronte's unassuming schoolmistress than you might initially think. One of life's meek, mild maidens on the surface, Jane is all boiling repressed sexuality within; but she cunningly confines her wild, dark, passionate side to the attic of her soul in order to maintain her pristine image as virtuous Victorian victim. The girl got spirit, but she knows that modest compliance and virginal restraint are always going to win with an alpha male like Edward Rochester. After all, reader, she married him. And got the big country pile.

And among the heroes is Heathcliff, though we bet they have had a hard time trying to decide whether to place him in this category or under villains.

Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte)
Heathcliff can largely be held responsible for the hundreds of modern young women currently weeping about their hopeless addiction to bastards into their fourth glass of rosé. From the moment teenage girls are forced to read Wuthering Heights in school, the course of their miserable love lives is set. We know that nothing good will ever come of a psychologically scarred, pathologically jealous demon-foundling from Liverpool; we know gypsy looks and brooding sulks do not bode well; but then deep down what girl doesn't really want "a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man" willing to disinter her grave? Case closed.

A brand-new crop of Brontëites:

Uptown Magazine on writer/director Danishka Esterhazy's feature-length debut, Black Field.

"I've always been a really big fan of Gothic literature - in particular, the novels of the Bronte sisters. As a child, before I had the chance to visit England, I always imagined the English moors to look like the Canadian Prairies. Now, of course, after being there, I realize they look nothing alike; still, I thought it would be fun to write a story fit for the moors but have it take place here." (Aaron Graham)

The Chicago Daily Herald on local teacher Judith Brodhead:

While her community involvements used to be a relief from teaching, now it's the other way around.
"I really love walking into a classroom and talking about 'Jane Eyre' or 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles,' or a film," she said. "That's fun." (Melissa Jenco)

And we are not quite sure whether writer Louis Ferrante is an actual Brontëites, but his reference to the Brontës in the Jewish Ledger is surely full of admiration:

I'd like to write more about how I educated myself and became a writer, which I did just by studying masterpieces: "War and Peace," "Les Miserables," the Brontë sisters. I would just keep reading books and dissect how the authors wrote. (Cindy Mindell)

In brief: The Independent reviews The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini. And the Mormon Times links to a blog post on an aimless walk on the moors (apparently like a modern-day Jane Eyre).

Apart from that blog post, it seems like the blogosphere today is all for Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights is discussed on Pen and Palette and Manifesto Jeocaz Lee-Meddi (in Portuguese). YouTube user JaneLearmonth reads Emily's poem Sympathy.

Categories: Brontëites, Dance, Jane Eyre, Music, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights