Wuthering Heights in Dunedin

A new production of Jane Thornton's adaptation of Wuthering Heights opens today, April 10, in Dunedin, New Zealand:

Fortune Theatre
Wuthering Heights
Adapted by Jane Thornton

Directed by Lisa Warrington
With Tim Foley, Anna Henare, Sara Best, Simon Vincent and Ricky Dey.

10 April – 02 May, 2010

April 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, May 1 @ 7:30 PM
April 11, 18, 25, May 2 @ 4:00 PM
April 13, 20, 37 @ 6:00 PM

Our 2009 production of Emma, also an adaptation of a classic, proved to be one of the year’s most successful shows. Wuthering Heights, as was Emma, will be directed by Lisa Warrington, with an ensemble cast of five young actors, most of whom play a variety of roles.
The Fortune’s production will be inventively staged, the raw scaffolding of the set being juxtaposed with the metres of silk and flowing satins of the deconstructed Georgian costumes.
It will be a stylish, fascinating, 21st century interpretation of a beloved Victorian classic.

The Otago Daily Times gives more information:

Tim Foley and Anna Henare say the intensity is partly to do with the story's setting on the remote Yorkshire moors. (...)
"Imagine any emotion you've ever had and make it extreme, unchecked and uncensored," said Foley, who plays the rough, uneducated Heathcliff. If you love someone, you grab them and tell them you love them.And if you hate them, you damn well express that."
On a more prosaic level, Henare admits she has "never been so knackered" going home from a rehearsal.
"You get done all the things that absolutely have to be done, then learn some lines till you fall asleep."
A compelling tale of passion, rivalry and revenge, Wuthering Heights is, according to director Lisa Warrington, one of those stories you have either known and loved since childhood or have only heard of through the 1978 Kate Bush song. (...)
The story is also about young adults making big decisions and living with the consequences, she says, adding Cathy has to decide if she will stay with Heathcliff, who is "a bit rough around the edges".
"There comes a time in puberty when you decide, 'Do I stay with those friends or try to better my social standing? Do I want to hang with the cool crowd and the rich people?' Our characters are facing those decisions."
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights was initially criticised because of its stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty.
While the characters might do what seem like horrible things, they have strong motives for it and the actors have to bring out those motives, Henare says.
Only then will the audience gain some understanding of who the characters are and actually care about what happens to them.
"Heathcliff is the underdog and treated badly. You expect from movies and books that the underdog struggles through adversity and then becomes a better person. But really, why should he turn the other cheek? Everyone else is so horrid around him. That was a big thing for me," added Foley.
"Not just reading the book and going, 'Hell, Heathcliff's so awful to people all the time.' I have to like him somehow or no-one else watching it will like him ... It's the same with Cathy. This play should make people question things," he said.
"Ideally, you have them sympathising with the characters, then questioning why they sympathise with them, and then sympathising with them again."
Foley acknowledges it is difficult when involved so intensely with such characters to avoid being in a bad mood at the end of the day: "But you find ways to let go after rehearsal.
"You have to or you'd be depressed for the entire seven weeks you were rehearsing and performing the play. At times, Henare has been moved to tears. The emotion comes just from speaking the words because we don't speak that way any more. We've shortened [our vocabulary] to 'text-speak' and that language is so detailed and rich. It has the ability to fully express and encompass what you feel or what you intend or what you want. The story also deals with the idea of love beyond the grave, she says. Heathcliff and Cathy eventually come back together in the afterlife. And I think some people want to know that is possible." (Kim Dungey)

A YouTube video with a sneak preview can be found here.

Categories: Theatre, Wuthering Heights