Emily Brontë, a film, and Wuthering Heights, a musical

The New York Times reviews Emma Rice's "glorious" Wuthering Heights.

Well, yes, but this is a show so devoted to clarity that it helps us keep track of each fresh death (and goodness, these people die at an alarming rate) by chalking that character’s name on a blackboard the size of a small tombstone and walking it slowly across the stage. That’s also our clue that the next time we see the actor whose character has died, that cast member will most likely be playing someone else — possibly the dead person’s child.

Also, the moors in this production at St. Ann’s Warehouse, performed last winter at the National Theater in London, are not just the locale, which Vicki Mortimer’s rough wooden set suggests mainly with the low gray clouds moving past on an upstage screen. (Video design is by Simon Baker.) The moors are embodied, too, by a chorus that sings, dances and possesses opinions — particularly the Leader of the Yorkshire Moors (a wonderful Nandi Bhebhe), who wears a headdress of brambly magnificence and takes on some of the vital background-providing function that the old family retainer Ellen has in the novel.

Anyway, no need to brush up on your Brontë. You’ll be fine. [...]

Yet Rice — a longtime St. Ann’s favorite for productions including “Brief Encounter” and “Tristan & Yseult” — makes certain that this beguiling “Wuthering Heights” is no carnival of gloom. Owen, especially, is a font of mirth, not only as Isabella but also as her extravagantly spoiled son, Little Linton, a creature so enfeebled by his cosseted upbringing that he’s practically boneless. Frances (Eleanor Sutton), the fragile nitwit who has the poor taste to marry Catherine’s brother, Hindley (Tama Phethean), is also a delicious source of comedy — as are assorted bitey dogs: puppets made of skulls on scythes.

Hindley has kindness solely for Frances, and when she dies he crumbles squalidly. Yet as cruel and falling-down drunk as Phethean is as Hindley, he is equally gentle — which is not to say saintly — as Hindley’s son, Hareton, who has been beaten down by both his father and Heathcliff, but chooses not to emulate them by targeting victims of his own. It is a gorgeous performance, its agility and tenderness of a piece with this production’s.

Stalked by Catherine’s perambulating ghost, and infused with live music by Ian Ross that feels somehow like earth and air, this is a show with a gloriously untamed spirit. On this first stop on its American tour, it is better — deeper and sexier — than the excellent version I saw in London early this year.

At nearly three hours, including the intermission, it asks an investment of time that’s absolutely worth it. I, for one, want to go again. (Laura Collins-Hughes)

According to The Daily Beast, it is a 'mad musical'.

Faithful to the book is a delight in its complication of character and plot. Sam Archer as Lockwood appears first, set upon by a vicious dog and general human unfriendliness, holding on to a door for dear life as the wind howls. He’s puzzled and tries to get any kind of physical and emotional grip on what is before him, as do we. The audience is offered character and plot summaries as Nandi Bhebhe (the leader of the Yorkshire Moors, a kind of narrator) tries to marshal the insanity unfolding from the pen of Brontë. The musical seems arch, ironic, and also serious—and the tonal shifts are confusing and unconvincing.

What you are not left with is any sense that Heathcliff (Liam Tamne) and Cathy (Lucy McCormick) are a great idea for a relationship, or any kind of romantic ideal, or even so-crazy-they-work. They seem deeply screwed up and beyond toxic—even as young kids when Heathcliff is first bought to Wuthering Heights, and bullied relentlessly by the brutish Hindley (Tama Phethean).

The production is a mix of physical theater and musical, with minimal stage adornments—a door is wheeled on to allow or disallow entry to homes and rooms. Yes, there are windows (so important practically and symbolically in Wuthering Heights). A chorus of singers doubles as the Moors in all their windy wildness. McCormick is a wild-haired, furious, unstable Catherine, and the standout song in Wuthering Heights is the wailing rock song she bellows at us before she dies.

But just as she and Heathcliff seem a bad idea, so the second act’s focus on young Cathy’s (Eleanor Sutton) relationship with Little Linton (Katy Owen) becomes a repetitive story that sees her abused and locked up away from her father by a now fully mad Heathcliff. It becomes tiresome, especially as—brilliant as Owen is as both a prim and puzzled Isabella Linton and sick Linton—the story sort of freezes at this point, and characters shout and wheedle and plead for minutes on end. A happy ending and some blue skies appear as both a surprise and relief.

The energy of the performers and the pumping music keep Rice’s Wuthering Heights pulsating to the end—but to what end was the question that nagged at the mind of this critic until he got home and put the Kate Bush track on straightaway. (Tim Teeman)

New York Theater reviews it too.

The Moors of Yorkshire is no longer a place; it’s a chorus. The Moors  have a leader (Nandi Bhebhe), who wears a crown of underbrush, and serves as the narrator of the tale (instead of the characters Mr. Lockwood and the housekeeper Nelly Dean in the novel.) She also acts as confidant and advisor to the characters, especially Heathcliff.

 Liam Tamne’s Heathcliff still smolders, but Lucy McCormick’s Cathy rocks, backed by a five-piece band.

The tone is established from the opening scene. When the stranger Mr. Lockwood (Sam Acher) makes his way through a snowstorm to the gloomy and inhospitable occupants of Wuthering Heights, he’s athletically thrown around by the wind, and repeatedly attacked by a puppet-dog that looks like a cross between a snake and a vacuum cleaner. It’s funny and clever shtick, and, as it turns out, characteristic of the production’s impish theatricality. 

These entertaining moments lighten a show with a three-hour running time. But they also made it more difficult for me to lose myself in the dark love story. In Rice’s one foray on Broadway, the 2010 production of “Brief Encounter,” her extremely clever stage adaptation of the 1945 David Lean film of the same name, she was able to pull off all sorts of theatrical tricks (seamlessly melding live action and video, for example) while keeping us engaged in the sad romantic story that it told. But “Wuthering Heights” has a much more complicated plot. The lovers themselves now get somewhat lost amid all the other characters, portrayed by the dozen cast members who perform up to three roles apiece. The production acknowledges how overwhelming this is, making it part of its schtick: Many of the actors carried chalkboards scrawled with their characters’ names. But of course that added to the jokey tone.

A more recent reader of the novel would probably have found it easier to follow. But to me, engaging in the story given all the noise of the production (much of it delightful) felt analogous to trying to have a serious conversation at a party that’s too loud and too crowded (even if the music has a great beat, and the crowd is good-looking.)

To be fair, I asked myself:  Would a straight gothic approach even have worked on a New York stage in our age of irony? Maybe the reason why I treasure the 1939 movie is exactly because it was made before I was born, and so I can excuse its excess (and forgive myself for enjoying it.) But then I remembered: “Sweeney Todd.”  (Jonathan Mandell)

Epigram enjoyed Emily.

The speculative biopic perfectly captures ultimate heartbreak: restrained desire, thwarted romance, and family betrayal. In an attempt to find the source of Emily Brontë’s fierce writing, O’Connor presents us with a world of unavoidable passion where the power of nature, both that of the moors and of one’s own troubled heart, is the ultimate narrator. [...]

Emma Mackey, best known for her role as Maeve in Sex Education (2019-), is exceptional and radiates Emily’s strong-willed nature and poeticism. Mackey skilfully portrays Emily’s liberation and journey to self-understanding as a writer before her untimely death, leaving a vivid impression worthy of the Brontë’s own pervading legacy.

The particularly candid depiction of anxiety throughout the film is a testament to both Mackey’s and O’Connor’s storytelling skills. We see the protagonist’s sheltered lifestyle in a deeply personal and realistic way, where her discomfort with new surroundings and people can be felt deeply, thanks to the creative uniqueness of Nanu Segal’s intimate cinematography. [...]

A memorable moment of the film is the especially gripping mask scene, where the elements of horror and supernatural in the film offer a new take on the sanitised period drama genre. As an audience, we are made to ask if this is part of Emily’s nightmares, a symbol of maternal loss, or a reincarnation of the arresting power of her imagination.

Another impactful development is that of the relationship between Emily (Mackey) and the new curate William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). It is established as a period drama favourite formula of enemies to lovers, regardless of the unlikeliness of Brontë’s own romantic relationships.

What appears to be predictable, with longing stares and the obligatory motif of brushing hands to a frantic piano accompaniment, in fact, develops into a heart-breaking portrayal of the turmoil between duty and passion, morality and Victorian sexuality. [...]

The sisters as a trio, with the often neglected Anne portrayed by Amelia Gething, has some moments of tenderness and unity across the film, but it is ultimately the protagonist herself who dominates the story’s focus. [...]

Nonetheless, O’Connor skews an important element of the historical struggle for female ownership: we see Emily proudly receive and cherish her printed text, whilst in reality, all three sisters wrote under pseudonyms.

Perhaps this was a detail which would require more of an equal balance of screentime for the three sisters, but O’Connor still presents us with a fiercely independent lead and subtly reverses other Victorian female injustices, such as the limitations of female work.

The sisters are all driven by their fervent desire to write, with Emily’s uniqueness and sombre thoughts contrasting the constrained corsetry of familial duty and the need to be ‘normal’.

The prominent takeaway from this astounding debut is the feeling of liberation. As Branwell (Whitehead) inspires in his sister Emily's ‘Freedom from thought’, so do we as an audience firmly feel the lasting impact of the Brontë’s powerful words. (Marine Saint)

Saltwire asked several people about the title of the imaginary film of their pandemic life. 

“It would probably just be called Busy because I was working on the film for so much of it,” said Frances O’Connor, whose first feature, Emily (about Emily Brontë), had its world premiere at TIFF. “It kind of passed by so quickly in a way because so much of it was spent with Emily, so I felt quite lucky that I had the distraction.” (Chris Knight)