Wuthering Heights in Manchester

Tomorrow, February 7, a new production of Wuthering Heights opens in Manchester:

A Royal Exchange Theatre Production
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
A new version by Andrew Sheridan.
7 February 2020 - 7 March 2020
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

Directed by Bryony Shanahan
With: Alex Austin, Rhiannon Clements, David Crellin, Dean Fagan, Samantha Power, Rakhee Sharma, Gurjeet Singh

When two souls collide, the impact can resonate for all eternity. So it was, and so it is, with Heathcliff and Cathy – but if they can’t be together, the world that struggles to contain them will simply shatter and burn…
Experience a very different side to literature’s most electric couple in this gripping reinvention of the classic tale. Bryony Shanahan’s production of Andrew Sheridan’s searing script is a ferocious, wild and utterly exhilarating celebration of passion, of desire – and of the female imagination that created this indelible masterpiece. Visceral and vicious, physical and poetic, tender and true: Emily Brontë never felt quite like this before.

EDIT: The Manchester Evening News has further information:

 Bryony said: "Thinking about Cathy and Heathcliff and their relationship, a way in which it has quite often been understood is as simply a romance.
"I think there are elements of that in it, of course. But I think that it's been pinned just as a romantic relationship so often as perhaps a way to try to understand what Emily has written in a way that it really isn't understandable.
"You know, their expression of 'I am you' - Cathy says 'I am Heathcliff'. That to me isn't like any romantic relationship I've had. Like in 'I am that person'."
"No! You'd run a mile," added Andy.
Bryony continued: "So whatever this relationship is, yes maybe it touches romance, but really I think we were always interested in what happens when two souls smash together and know that they can't exist without each other."
Andy said: "They are really flawed human beings, and I think that's why people can cling on to them, because they have the flaws that we have, and yet they still find this love that goes beyond the boundaries of what love is.
"It's something a lot deeper that can't be understood, that can't be manifested, that can't be spoken about. It's something that's bigger than them and it's bigger than us as well."
The writer and director were initially hesitant to take on the story. Andy said: "We are the most unlikely people to make Wuthering Heights.
"Yeah, but oddly," said Bryony, "We've both become completely obsessed with this novel and with Emily Brontë. (Justin Connolly)