A new adaptation of Wuthering Heights opens in Chicago

A new theatre adaptation of Wuthering Heights begins its preview performances today, September 10, in Chicago, IL:

Lifeline Theatre presents
Wuthering Heights
adapted by Christina Calvit
Directed by Elise Kauzlaric

With
Lucy Carapetyan (Catherine Linton), Christopher Chmelik (Hareton Earnshaw), Cameron Feagin (Nelly Dean), Sarah Goeden (Isabella Linton), Gregory Isaac (Heathcliff), Robert Kauzlaric (Edgar Linton), Lindsay Leopold (Cathy Earnshaw), John Henry Roberts (Hindley Earnshaw), Nick Vidal (Linton Heathcliff) and Christina Hall (Understudy).

Inseparable from childhood, Heathcliff and Cathy believe themselves eternally bound. But when they are brutally torn apart, the resulting course of retribution provides an unflinching look into the cyclic nature of revenge and the unknowable passions of the heart. Travel across Yorkshire's stormy moors with one of literature's darkest antiheroes in this legendary tale of devotion and redemption. An epic love story, re-imagined as a highly physical work of powerful imagery by the award-winning adaptor and director of Mariette in Ecstasy.

Previews: September 10-19.
Opening Night: September 20: 7.30 PM
Performances: September 21-October 31.

More information here and on Broadway World. More pictures on Flickr's Lifeline Theatre's photostream. The Niles-Herald-Spectator presents the production like this:

Actor Lindsay Leopold wants to shatter a popular notion about "Wuthering Heights."
Leopold, who stars in Lifeline Theatre's adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic, 19th-century novel, wants people to know it is not simply a story about romance.
Heathcliff (Gregory Isaac) and Cathy (Lindsay Leopold) in Lifeline Theatre's world premiere production of "Wuthering Heights."
"I would love for people who are not familiar with this story, but maybe kind of view it as something like that to come in and just really explode that notion and be like 'No, no, no. These people are dark. These people do have love for each other, but there's a violence to it and there's an anger to it and there's so much more there,'" said Leopold who plays Cathy Earnshaw, the female protagonist. (...)
"Heathcliff is the only one who understands her impulses and her thoughts and the way that she thinks and the way that she feels. There's a strong sense that the two of them kind of share similar qualities in that way," Leopold said. (...)
"It kind of develops into a classic love triangle and Cathy ultimately does make the decision to be with the man who can be very sweet and who can really give in to her every need and whim and doesn't particularly challenge her or engage her on the level I think that Heathcliff really does," Leopold said.
While many stage adaptations of "Wuthering Heights" end with Cathy dying, but before Heathcliff returns to exact his revenge on the second generation of Cathy's children from another man, Lifeline Theatre's adaptation features that revenge and violence prominently, said the show's director Elise Kauzlaric.
"The novel has so much violence and so many dark shades to it and our production is totally leaning into that," Leopold said.
"When people hear 'Wuthering Heights,' a lot of times their first reaction is that it's a romance and it's really not. It's a revenge story. And if you don't have the second generation story in it you really don't get that," Kauzlaric said.
She noted that "Wuthering Heights" is one of the most passionate stories that she has ever encountered. "And Heathcliff is a fascinating character to experience because you're at once repulsed by this behavior, but at the same time feel sympathy for him and that's always a fascinating look at a character for me."
She said the show will appeal to people drawn to British literature, but she also hopes to draw fans of the "Twilight" books, a series of four vampire-based fantasy romance novels by by author Stephenie Meyer as well.
"A lot of people read this book when they're teens and can identify with the angst," she said. She was curious to see whether a younger audience would be drawn to Lifeline's production.
The play also incorporates many physical elements, Leopold said.
"It's very much a play, but there are moments of heightened staged physicality that sort of resemble dance, just kind of heightened movement that I think you can't capture that with a book per se," she said. (Joanna Broder)

Photo by Suzanne Plunkett.

Categories: Theatre, Wuthering Heights