It's one of the most instantly recognisable titles in English fiction, but when Wuthering Heights arrives at the Lyric Hammersmith next week, precious little else about it will be familiar. Because the theatre company Tamasha has taken Brontë, wholesale, to Bollywood. Its adaptation of the classic, 19th-century tale of thwarted, illegitimate and, on occasion, frankly imponderable love is relocated to 1770s Rajasthan, where Cathy and Heathcliff are reincarnated as Shakuntala and Krishan, clad in silks and spangles, and the story is set to an all-new Bollywood score.You can catch it in London from April 29th to May 23rd. After that they continue with their extensive UK tour.
Tamasha's co-founder and Wuthering Heights director Kristine Landon-Smith insists that “it's such a perfect marriage of story and genre, it seems almost obvious. When Brontë meets Bollywood, it really works.”
The play's writer, Deepak Verma, once known to the nation as Sanjay in EastEnders, decided after a trip to the region that the Rajasthani deserts were just as romantic, foreboding and unforgiving as the blasted heath of Brontë's imagining. “From there,” he says, “all the pieces fell into place.” The repressive, corseted Victorian culture of the novel found a perfect foil in the rigid caste strictures of Indian society. Hinduism provided additional illuminating parallels: the inviolably sacred nature of a brother-sister relationship and the haunting consequence of not completing funerary rites, for instance. In the creeping evolution of the East India Company into a controlling nation state, Tamasha also discovered an intriguing new light in which to cast Cathy's pursed-lipped, respectable husband, Edgar Linton, here renamed Vijay, a tax collector and puppet of the British ruling classes.
“The love that is fated is the absolute classic Bollywood formula,” Landon-Smith explains. She noted, on watching William Wyler's 1939, Oscar-winning film of Wuthering Heights, starring the Indian-born Merle Oberon and the permanently furrowed, slightly sweaty brow of a young Laurence Olivier, that “it's full of these immediately recognisable Bollywood close-up moments”. Wuthering Heights, you recall, is a story in which a woman dies of a prolonged fit of pique, ghosts pop up whenever there's a high wind, and at a hint of rain at least two characters will be sure to come down with consumption. The kind of fictive caper, then, to which the excesses of Bollywood seem uniquely suited.
First published in 1847 under the authorial pseudonym Ellis Bell, Emily Brontë's only novel has inspired a raft of adaptations, from the Spanish director Luis Buñuel's Abismos de Pasión in 1954 to an all-female Japanese opera, recently revived in Tokyo, and it has already been the subject of a large-scale, Bollywood interpretation, the 1966 India-wide release Dil Diya Dard Liya.
If these adaptations have met with a decidedly mixed reception, so too have a stack of high-profile attempts to splice Eastern form with Western content, such as Gurinder Chadha's luckless Jane Austen Bollywood spin in 2004, Bride and Prejudice.
“Crossovers fall down,” Landon-Smith says, “when they don't follow the transliteration through. It's vital that the original story remains absolutely visible, but you also have to deliver the Bollywood element. You have to hold both audiences in your mind at once. It's when the cultural specificity of the retelling is very real that the story can become truly universal.”
Tamasha should know. Now in its 20th year, it developed East is East, Ayub Khan-Din's stupendous social comedy of a mixed-race northern family, which had its premiere at the Royal Court in 1997 before becoming a hit indie film, and the company hasve produced a string of sell-out Anglo-Indian shows since.
Developing Wuthering Heights, however, has proved uniquely demanding. “We wanted it to sound authentically Indian,” Landon-Smith says, “but the songs also had to work within a Western musical theatre tradition,” which meant employing a three-tiered system of composers, arrangers and performers, and relaying samples between Basingstoke and Bangalore before prerecording the final score, which, in true Bollywood style, will be lip-synched on stage.
Pushpinder Chani, Krishnan/Heathcliff to Youkti Patel's Shakuntala/Cathy, has, surprisingly, found that skill the most difficult to master: “Lip-synching's way harder than it looks, but that's the key to Bollywood acting,” he chuckles, “that and trying not to look too stupid when you dance.”
“The landscape of the whole world changed with Slumdog Millionaire,” says Verma, who is determined to turn his play into a film. “The attention this is getting is just amazing.” And, whatever the fate of Tamasha's Wuthering Heights, he is probably right to predict, as India's economy continues to boom and its addiction to cinema shows no sign of waning: “Just wait. We haven't even touched the surface of this crossover phenomenon yet.” (Lucy Powell)
And now for something completely different: the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has done a very different cover of Wuthering Heights. Check it out. It's irritatingly catchy. (Jillian Allison-Aitken)Ann Cannon, from the Deseret News, writes a letter to Twilight's own Edward Cullen.
Oh, you make a great romantic lead. Classic, even. No doubt about it. In fact, I'd rank you right up there with Jane Eyre's Rochester and Catherine's Heathcliff and possibly even Elizabeth's Mr. Darcy, who (like you) obviously has excellent personal grooming skills. You're mysterious and aloof, and yet underneath it all? Wowza.The Filipino SunStar quotes Anne Brontë:
"But he that dares not grasp the thorn," Anne Bronte advices, "should never crave the rose." (Henrylito D. Tacio)These beautiful words come from a poem called The Narrow Way. We suggest you read the whole poem.
The author of Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, used the pseudonym ¡°Action Bell¡± to circumvent prejudice against women writers. (Park Kyeong-sin)What is surely not due to character-conversion is the fact that the original must have said Acton Bell. Acton Bell was actually Anne. Emily hid herself behind Ellis Bell. We love 'Action Bell' though.
Meet Edward Rochester, a secret agent from Britain that was sent to Hatii to stop the inner turmoil. While there, he meets the lovely Jane Eyre, a French senator, and they quickly fall in love. Watch as Rochester partakes in wacky phenomenons while he attempts to take down the evil Mr. Brocklehurst, the leader of a brainwashing rebellion, and free the Hatiians from this tyranny. Will Jane and Rochester succeed, or will the revolutionaries doom the entire world?Part 1 and Part 2.
This video uses characters from the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte.
Jane Austen and the Brontës: 'Sense' versus 'Sensibility'Categories: Alert, Anne Brontë, Books, Brussels, Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre, Music, Poetry, Talks, Theatre, Villette, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights
Farncombe Estate Centre
Broadway (Cotswolds)
Worcestershire, WR12 7LJ
Literature & Writing
27 April 2008 at 2:30 p.m.
With Angela Day
So much in common and yet so different: Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. We look at Austen’s "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice", Charlotte Bronte’s "Jane Eyre" and Emily Bronte’s "Wuthering Heights" and discuss this apparent paradox. Austen’s approach is through a rejection of excess of sentimentality – sense. The Bronte novels emphasise the power of the imagination – sensibility.
'Brontë goes to Bollywood" is how the British-Asian theatre company Tamasha has tagged its cross-over version of Wuthering Heights, in which saris, song and sand replace the rather more dour elements of Emily Brontë's Gothic novel. Although not a homage to Hindi cinema in the way that Slumdog Millionaire is, this adaptation by Deepak Verma is persuasive enough to have reduced the three Oldham-Indian ladies beside me to tears.And the Guardian devotes quite a lengthy article to this production:
As Sanjay in EastEnders, Verma used to say "This time next year we'll be millionaires." Verma might well have struck gold with his idea of relocating the tale of doomed passion and poetic grand vision from the bleak, windswept Heights to the scorched desert of late 18th-century Rajasthan. Here, in India, the turbulent weather conveyed in the Yorkshire word "wuthering" is translated into sandstorms that blast not a heath but a simple set comprising beige ramps and evocative backdrops cinematically lit to convey epic landscapes. Against this background, Brontë's tale of fate, destiny and duty – aspects of Wuthering Heights which Hindu society would recognise all too clearly – is peppered with references to spirituality, dance sequences and a catchy soundtrack by Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee.
The musical opens in a market with camels dotted across the horizon and the tale unfolds through the words of a wanderer carrying a sacred urn. It doesn't take long before Shakuntala has fallen for Krishan whom her father Singh has brought home from the slums. You don't need to identify Brontë's characters since the story unfolds in a perfectly accessible way from whatever culture you approach it. For rigid Victorian values and snobbery, read stringent Indian hierarchies; for complicated, contradictory Bollywood heroine, see feisty, single-minded Yorkshire lass. Kristine Landon-Smith's take on Brontë owes as much to the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon as to the novel. But was it fanciful also to detect echoes of Bernard Herrmann's opera? The Bollywood melodrama is kept firmly in check, thanks to the sensitive characterisation of Pushpinder Chani as the Heathcliff character of Krishan opposite Youkti Patel, a vivid Shakuntala (Catherine Earnshaw).
In true Bollywood style, the songs have been pre-recorded in India so that the cast has the additional challenge of lip-synching to some of Bollywood's finest professional playback singers.
Verma has spiced up the English with some humour and incorporated a number of Hindi phrases so that the dialogue comes across more authentically in the genre of Bollywood. It certainly adds an exotic touch.
With a cast of just 11, the director, Kristine Landon-Smith, is hard-pushed to create the kind of all-singing, all-dancing line-up found in a Bollywood extravaganza. However she succeeds in drawing big-hearted performances and if busy market and grand party scenes – and the camel race – seem sparsely peopled, they are handsomely costumed and subtly choreographed.
The pace of the production isn't exactly fast but it seldom drags, the action evolving fluidly. It's no time at all before we're on the banks of the Ganges, spectators at Shakuntala's funeral pyre. The urn on the stranger's back, it becomes clear, contains the fettered spirit of his beloved Shakuntala. Cue another sandstorm into which Baba the narrator disappears, to emerge drifting in the breeze in a pretty "picturisation" as young Krishan is reunited with the freed spirit of Shakuntala. "Shukar he Bhagwan ka" (Thanks be to God) says Ayah (Nelly Dean, of course). It's an imaginative perspective on a great classic and one that, with a little reworking, could surely transfer to the big screen with the same success as Tamasha's East is East. (Lynne Walker)
When the Asian theatre company Tamasha announced that it was producing a Bollywood version of Wuthering Heights, it could have seemed a crossover project too far. The attempt to splice western content and eastern form has been attempted before without wholly successful results - as Andrew Lloyd Webber and AR Rahman's collaboration Bombay Dreams, or Gurinder Chadha's hapless Jane Austen adaptation, Bride and Prejudice, both proved.Categories: Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights
Yet when you consider the elements of Emily Brontë's novel - passionate, larger-than-life characters; wild, spectacular locations; a confusing plot spun out across a couple of generations - it does have all the ingredients of a classic Hindi film. Tamasha's artistic director, Kristine Landon-Smith, was initially sceptical: "When the writer, Deepak Verma, first came to us with the concept of a Bollywood version of Wuthering Heights, my response was, 'Are you kidding?' Then I thought, 'Why not?' On reflection, it seemed one of those ideas so obvious that no one had thought of it."
When Emily Brontë wrote the book she probably didn't have saris and elaborate song-and-dance sequences in mind. But instead of the novel, Tamasha's version takes its inspiration from the melodramatic 1939 movie, starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. "It occurred to me that if you added a soundtrack of Hindi pop music to that film you would have the perfect Bollywood prototype," says Landon-Smith.
It's a suggestion that becomes all the more intriguing when you consider that Merle Oberon had Asian parentage: she was born in Mumbai, and her mother was Anglo-Sri Lankan, although this was kept secret at the time. Nor does it require a huge leap of the imagination to perceive Cathy as the archetypal Bollywood heroine: contradictory, complicated and compelled to deal with her emotions by running out of doors - though, in this instance, it will not be the windswept Yorkshire moors but the parched desert of Rajasthan.
"We had to find a way of making the story work in an Indian context," says Landon-Smith, "yet the parallels seem perfectly clear. Rajasthan was a rigidly hierarchical society, controlled by the British. So Heathcliff's mysterious transformation from street urchin to self-made man might be seen to reflect the opportunistic fortunes to be made within the East India Company."
In Verma's adaptation all the characters' names have been changed; the production has also introduced sandstorms, Hindu spirituality and camels. Verma explains: "As a writer, I am interested in creating characters who seem real. Yet Bollywood demands that you use certain archetypes. There has to be sentimentality, a clear distinction between good and evil, and songs and dances."
Tamasha has a long track record of developing Asian drama with broad crossover appeal. It was the company that first produced Ayub Khan-Din's East Is East, and Verma hopes there is similar scope for turning this version of Wuthering Heights into a film. If so, it won't be the first: Brontë's novel has been given the Bollywood treatment a number of times, the earliest being a 1966 film entitled Dil Diya Dard Liya. And the story has emerged in much stranger guises: as a 1950s Spanish-language version set in Mexico; in an all-women treatment by the Japanese company Takarazuka Revue; and, most bizarrely of all, in Cliff Richard's much-reviled stage musical, Heathcliff.
If Cliff seemed an odd fit for Brontë's antihero, Pushpinder Chani, who plays the Heathcliff-inspired character in Tamasha's show, looks very much the part as he rehearses his dance sequences and multilingual dialogue with co-star Youkti Patel. Chani prepared for the part by studying Olivier's performance alongside a number of brooding, Bollywood baddies, but he says the hardest task has been learning how to mime the songs convincingly.
For authenticity's sake, the music for the production has been recorded in India, and the actors must faithfully recreate the vocal performances of some of Bollywood's leading playback singers. "It would be easier just to sing the songs, to be honest," says Chani. "It's not just the words - you have to get all the details of the breathing and the intonation right, otherwise you're just left opening and closing your mouth like a fish."
Though big Bollywood production numbers are difficult to reproduce live on stage, early performances of the show suggest that it should be worth the effort. Even within the bare space of a rehearsal studio, the music helps establish the mood, and the story runs more fluidly. Stage adaptations of Wuthering Heights often stagger beneath the weight of the narrative: here, the central characters' growing infatuation is summed up with one choreographed frolic through the desert.
As the action builds towards a grand funeral rite on the banks of the Ganges, it becomes clear that this version of Wuthering Heights is really more like a spiritual cousin of Emily Brontë's work than its direct descendant. In fact, the two ultimately have so little in common you wonder why Tamasha chose to retain the title. "The title itself is non-negotiable," explains Verma. "It's like Coca-Cola - it's instantly recognisable around the world. There are thousands of people who have never read Wuthering Heights. But everyone knows what it's about." (Alfred Hickling)
The media are thrilled with the upcoming production (next spring) of a Bollywood-style adaptation of Wuthering Heights by the Tamasha Theatre Company. Some even suggest a possible Bollywood adaptation:It has all the ingredients for the perfect Bollywood drama: sweeping landscapes, a tortured hero, a long-suffering heroine and an unrequited love story with tragic consequences – Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is about to get a Bollywood makeover.The Telegraph:
The acclaimed writer Deepak Verma has put the finishing touches to a musical version of the novel, transposing the quintessentially Yorkshire love tale to the deserts of Rajasthan and swapping Victorian snobbery for India's strict caste system.
The play will be set to Bollywood-style music but will broadly follow the plot of the 1847 novel, which recounts how the tormented foundling Heathcliff fell in love with Catherine, the daughter of the kindly benefactor who took him off the streets of Liverpool.
The brooding figure of Heathcliff is replaced by Krishan, a low-caste street urchin who is adopted by a kindly merchant and falls in love with his headstrong daughter Shakuntala.
Verma, one of the first British-Asian actors to become a household name in the UK when he played Sanjay in EastEnders, said he always thought that the novel lended itself to a Bollywood makeover.
"Marrying Wuthering Heights to Bollywood just seemed like the obvious thing to do," he said. "Everything about it suits Bollywood – a tragic love story set in a beautiful and harsh environment. It's perfect." Casting for the 12 roles has already begun and the production will tour the UK next spring.
The Tamasha Theatre Company, a charity set up in 1989 to bring British-Asian work to the stage, is producing the play. Tamasha has helped launch the careers of some of the most successful British-Asian performers.(...)
Kristine Landon-Smith, who set up Tamasha with the playwright Sudha Bhuchar, said of Wuthering Heights: "This production will go up to the death of Catherine's character. It's the perfect Bollywood tragedy with epic landscapes and epic characters. The hierarchical structure of Victorian society translates very well into the same era in Rajasthan."
Andrew McCarthy, who runs the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, near Bradford, said Wuthering Heights could easily be adapted to different locations and cultures. "I think it's a wonderful idea," he said.
He hoped a Bollywood version of the novel would help open up new audiences to Brontë's classic work. (Jerome Taylor & Sofia Mitra-Thakur)
The tale of the tempestuous love affair between Heathcliff and Catherine is being relocated to the Rajasthan desert.The news agency France-Press:
Deepak Verma, the writer, and the Tamasha theatre company are collaborating on the project, which will debut at the Oldham Coliseum next March before touring Britain.
"It is not like putting a square peg into a round hole," said Kristine Landon-Smith, Tamasha's artistic director.
"I thought of the harsh landscape in the original book, and if you put some swelling Bollywood music behind it you already almost have a Bollywood film. It just felt to me that it was a perfect match. There are points where the emotions get so high that they have to sing instead of speak. It's natural why it should be a musical."
Although Tamasha has already transposed the works of Emile Zola, the French novelist, to an Asian setting, this is the London-based company's first attempt to marry a musical to classic literature.
Rather than being a "high-octane and colourful" production, Landon-Smith said it will have a "moody, Chekovian feel".
"But we're not going to go too far," she told the Sunday Herald. "The production has to meet some of the expectations for a feel-good Bollywood musical."
The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth described the Bollywood Wuthering Heights as "a fairly radical reinterpretation".(Graham Tibbetts)
Deepak Verma, a former star of popular British soap opera "Eastenders," has turned the classic Emily Bronte novel into a stage musical with a Bollywood theme and hopes to see it move eventually to the big screen.Categories: Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights
"The book was just perfect for adaptation. There are so many things about it that just fitted in with aspects of Indian culture," Verma told AFP. "What interested me is the ghostly, haunting aspect of the book.
"The Victorian values in the novel are also found in Indian society and the desert is a harsh place, just like the moors of Yorkshire."
In the musical, the novel's main male character, the brooding Heathcliff, has been renamed Krishnan, a street urchin who falls in love with the merchant who adopts him. (...)
The London-based Tamasha theatre company has already started casting for the 12 roles and the production will tour eight British cities from March, including a four-week run at the respected Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London.
Verma, who is currently producing films in Britain, the United States and India, said he believed the musical would lend itself to a big-budget Bollywood production.
"I really want to get the play out there and then see what happens," he said. "Hopefully it will be made into a Bollywood film. I think it would be perfect."
In moodily beautiful rain country, the romance builds along nearly clichéd lines, though often hewing close to the brooding genre tracks laid by classics like Rebecca or Jane Eyre. (D.J. Palladino in The Santa Barbara Independent)
But a vampire is still a vampire who wants to make dinner of a bucket of blood, so what's the attraction? Vampires have their roots in stories about the bad boys of literature -- think Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights" or bad Byron, a lord but a romantic poet for all that, who mocked and defied prim and proper 19th century social conventions. But something else is going on here. Those bad boys weren't out for blood. (Suzanne Fields in Erie-Times News)
I know it is not fair to make comparisons among authors but there’s really not much that can be said about the Twilight book per se—it’s a straightforward love story with only one complication: He is a vampire, she is human. In fact, the first book in the series only offers one wrinkle in the plotline—a third vampire. And that’s it. It’s not Wuthering Heights nor is it The English Patient, of that I am very sure. (Bong Austero in the Manila Standard Today)
Why the mania? Edward is Romeo, Heathcliff, James Dean, and Brad Pitt all rolled into one: a scruffy-gorgeous bloodsucker pin-up who is really an angelic protector. A bad boy with a good heart. "The perfect boyfriend who just happens to live on blood." (Vanessa Richmond in The Tyee)
Today's teens, it turns out, are not so very different from the girls who swooned over Jane Eyre.And we think that's all from the Twilight front for today. Perhaps all these reviews might help to get more people to read the Brontës because as a tenth grade student writes in The Asbury Park Press,
Edward Cullen may be undead, but romance is very much alive. (Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail)
However, I have realized that my thirst for literature is sometimes an anomaly. Many students in my school have never heard of "Jane Eyre" or "Pride and Prejudice." How is this possible? Students don't realize what they're missing because they have not been exposed enough to the classics in literature. While reading best sellers is wonderful, the classics improve one's mind in numerous ways. They are books that are read time and time again. (Kaitlin LeGrand)And now for a few random Wuthering Heights tidbits:
On hearing recent news that Tamasha, one of Britain's leading Asian theatre companies is producing a Bollywood-style adaptation of Wuthering Heights, I have to admit to a feeling of deja vu. Admittedly, I've never seen a Bollywood take on this novel but the idea still felt very familiar and a little tired.Knox County Village Soup reviews the recent release of Studio One's Wuthering Heights (included in an anthology).
Two thoughts ran immediately through my mind. First: "Not another western classic sprinkled with a little bit of garam masala?" The second thought struck me in the pit of my stomach: "Is this it? Are British Asian stories dead?"
In recent years, it seems as if the only way to get British Asian theatre companies into main-house theatres is by adapting an English classic (preferably Victorian) and to equate the intolerant and repressed Victorian family values with those of modern, British Asian families. Equally, take the oppressed Victorian female and equate her to a modern south-Asian female. And that's it. With a slight change in climate and a suitable town where ethnic minorities are common, you have your adaptation. No more thought seems necessary.
It appears that in order to comment on south-Asian culture in mainstream theatre today, we have to compare it to English culture of the 19th century. [...]
I sincerely hope that Tamasha's Wuthering Heights will be the huge success they anticipate. Actually, I'm sure it will be. I do not blame individual companies striving to get bums on seats; it's a hard job. I blame external forces that seem to dictate the terms. When it comes to British Asian theatre, this type of work is a safe bet. Anything else is seen as too risky. (Parv Bancil)
A young Charlton Heston plays Heathcliff in an adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” that is more faithful to the 1939 film version that Emily Bronte’s novel. (Tom Von Malder)And the Evening Star reviews The Grandees' Hen and Chickens (check this previous post) , whose script is
so desperately thin it has to be padded out with daft dances to Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. . . (Bruce Dessau)We have yet to see a dance to that song which can't be considered 'daft'.
Auditions will be held by appointment only Dec. 7, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m., Dec. 8, 6:00 - 10:00 p.m., Dec. 9, 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. at Seattle Musical Theatre, Building #47, Magnuson Park (North of University Village) located 7400 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115.Do read the complete post for further details.
The scorched desert landscape of Rajasthan is the setting for an evocative new musical interpretation of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s timeless tale of passion, jealousy and revenge, which runs at the Belgrade Theatre from 9 – 13 June.Stage news comes also from Barry's Bay This Week about Murder by the Book, a play in two-acts presented by Madawaska Valley District High School last Thursday night.
1770s Rajasthan, with its rigid social hierarchy, inequality of wealth and Victorian influences, is an ideal location for this classic story of passion corrupted by prevailing social values. In place of the cold moors, the wild scorched expanse of the desert provides a symbolic setting for the doomed love affair of Shakuntala and Krishan (Cathy and Heathcliff from the original novel).
“A stunning take on Wuthering Heights… the show looks gorgeous…Youkti Patel is a Bollywood-standard beauty” The Sunday Times
Tamasha’s version of Wuthering Heights retains the dark and brooding atmosphere of the original novel, whilst seeking to create a fresh musical style with a fusion between a Bollywood cinematic treatment and other more classical elements of a western musical. Wuthering Heights follows Tamasha’s previous large-scale populist productions, Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral and Strictly Dandia.
Director Kristine Landon-Smith, co-founder and artistic director of Tamasha, directed Bollywood musical: Fourteen Songs Two Weddings and A Funeral for the company. As an adaptation of the blockbuster Hum Aapke Hein Koun, this was a direct transfer of the original film to stage in English. Kristine’s recent credits include Sweet Cider (Arcola), A Fine Balance (Hampstead and UK tour), The Trouble With Asian Men (artsdepot and UK tours).
“Could surely transfer to the big screen with the same success as Tamasha's East is East" The Independent
Writer Deepak Verma has previously worked with Tamasha on his play Ghostdancing (Lyric Hammersmith, also directed by Kristine Landon-Smith) which was based on Zola’s Thérèse Raquin and translated to an Indian setting. He is additionally known for his long-running role as Sanjay in EastEnders.
Wuthering Heights, designer Sue Mayes travelled to Rajasthan in 2008 to research the set and costumes. Inspired by her trip, the design includes the scorched desert, a sumptuous palace and a camel racecourse! The creative team has also looked at the history of Indian cinema and used many classic films as reference, including Madhumati (1958) with its brooding landscapes, the brutality of Mother India (1957) which mixes folkloric music and culture with original composition, Devdas (1955) which examines caste hierarchies in a black and white epic narrative and the more recent colourful blockbuster, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999).
Music for the show, composed by Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee, reflects the epic nature of the story and landscape with a score that combines original composition and authentic Rajasthani folkloric music. Felix Cross is Artistic Director of Nitro and his extensive theatre credits include the music for Tamasha’s Ghostdancing and A Fine Balance. Sheema Mukherjee brings her blend of Western tradition and Indian classical music. Previously she has collaborated with Natacha Atlas, Transglobal Underground, Noel Gallagher, Cornershop and Courtney Pine. In Wuthering Heights eleven actors will sing in lip-synch to a pre-recorded score, which has been performed and recorded by a team of classically-trained musicians in Bangalore and vocalists in London. Musical Supervisor is John Rigby who has worked with many of the UK’s leading orchestras and on some of the West End’s biggest musicals. Co-arranger Chandru is a renowned violinist and arranger who has previously worked with George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Bjork, Nitin Sawnhey and The Cure.
Choreography is by Nikki Woollaston (recent credits include West End musical Marguerite and ENO’s Kismet). The cast includes Pushpinder Chani as Krishan and newcomer Youkti Patel as Shakuntala.
Tickets are available now from the box office on 024 7655 3055 or via www.belgrade.co.uk, priced from £9.30 to £18.11.
When the Raven Society meets on an isolated island to determine the best mystery book of the year, little do the members realize that their own lives are in jeopardy. Membership in the society is secret: each person comes disguised as a famous author and is known only in that persona. When the group receives a letter declaring each member will die by their own words, the authors must determine who the murderer is before it’s too late.On a not-so-unrelated note, the Boston Globe reviews composer John Williams's world premiere Concerto for Viola and Orchestra last night. Apart from that premiere, some of his soundtracks were also played.
This is the premise of “Murder By The Book,” a two-act play brought to life on the stage at Madawaska Valley District High School Thursday night. The authors were famous indeed: Agatha Christie (Kim Fehr), Edgar Allan Poe (Jacob Harron), Mary Shelley (Katherine Benkhe), William Shakespeare (Nathaniel Wildsmith Chappell), Mark Twain (Jordan Fehr), Louisa May Alcott (Joan Thompson), Charlotte Bronte (Amber Morrison), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Tylor Eleser) and Emily Dickinson (Melynda Marco). The only other person at the meeting is housekeeper Violia Danglon (Yasmin Fakli). (Heather Kendall)
And Williams's Suite from Jane Eyre gave the strings a chance to shine, especially in the second movement, when the conductor emeritus held up a finger to the violins to keep them sawing away while he leaned in the other direction to give close attention to the cellos. (Joel Brown)John Williams wrote the beautiful score of Jane Eyre 1970.
If you could only have one book to read for the rest of your life, which book would you choose?And we would like to add that it has even more things. Because we are still trapped in that Jane-Eyre-is-only-for-girls sort of thing, as evinced by this article in the Sequim Gazette.
That’s a hard question, I love so many books but if you insist on one, then it would have to be Wuthering Heights. It has everything. It is the perfect book, with so much passion and hatred. The characters are unforgettable. I remember reading it as a teenager. I read it in one session, I could not even eat.
Which story do you wish you had thought of first?
I would love to have written Jane Eyre, the ultimate romance. To have been the first to have written that book – it has everything: romance, mystery, suspense and passion. (Erin Russell)
When recommending books for girls, [Sequim Middle School librarian Jo Chinn] says “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte is a top choice. For boys, Chinn has read every sports book in the library to better recommend titles. (Matthew Nash)We are very sorry to say this, but that is one certain way of not expanding children's horizons. As we have seen, shown and repeated here on BrontëBlog time and time again a good many boys like Jane Eyre. And if more boys/men don't appreciate or even read the novel is because it's constantly being tagged 'for girls'. Men in the Brontës' times were shocked by Jane Eyre and even found it 'coarse'.
In all, Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt has 731 customer reviews [on Amazon] as of today. To contrast, there are only 572 reviews for “Wuthering Heights.” (Kevin Wilson from Freedom New Mexico)If Wuthering Heights is marketed 'for girls only' then that is not surprising: a classic book will have less reviews than a T-shirt.
LEEDS-LIVERPOOL CANALA couple of blogs today: Ramblings & Writings reviews Jillian Dare and Margaret Muir posts briefly about Pilot.
Running across the Pennines, this waterway has some steep flights of locks but re-pays the work involved with glorious scenery.
Running between the two cities of its name, this canal is the longest in Britain, so holidaymakers tend to pick a section to explore. Perhaps the best plan is to start from Skipton, “Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales”, You can head east through the Bronte Country around Keighley and on to Bingley. Or west through rugged Dales scenery to Barnoldswick. (Terry Ramsey)
WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Emily Bronte's gothic tale of wild, dark, passionate love, has inspired everything from Kate Bush's songs to Gordon Brown's sense of identity. But this classic of English literature is about to undergo its most radical transformation yet: it is to be remade for the stage as a Bollywood musical.We wonder if the producers are aware that, as matter of fact, there is a Bollywood precedent of an adaptation of Wuthering Heights: Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966) (check this old post for more information).
Acclaimed writer Deepak Verma and theatre company Tamasha are swapping Yorkshire's blasted heaths and Victorian Britain's hierarchical society for the Rajasthan desert and India's strict caste system in a production that is due to come to the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow in the spring.
According to the producer, Bronte's gloomy story of the destructive love affair between the outcast Heathcliffe and prototype wild child Catherine Earnshaw is closer to the upbeat spirit of a Bollywood musical than most people think.
"It is not like putting a square peg into a round hole," says Kristine Landon-Smith, Tamasha's artistic director. "I thought of the harsh landscape in the original book, and if you put some swelling Bollywood music behind it you already almost have a Bollywood film. It just felt to me that it was a perfect match. There are points where the emotions get so high that they have to sing instead of speak. It's natural why it should be a musical."
Previously, Tamasha have transposed the works of French novelist Emile Zola to an Asian setting, but this is the London-based company's first attempt to marry a musical to classic literature.
Rather than being a "high-octane and colourful" production, Landon-Smith said it will have a "moody, Chekovian feel".
"But we're not going to go too far," she said. "The production has to meet some of the expectations for a feel-good Bollywood musical."
The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth described the Bollywood Wuthering Heights as "a fairly radical reinterpretation".(...)
"I think it is a fantastic thing and we very much support it," said Andrew McCarthy, director of the museum. The museum is in the middle of a racially diverse area. McCarthy hopes this new production will help break down the preconceptions attached to the Bronte's work.
"One of the difficulties we have in the museum is we are traditionally seen as a very white, middle-class visitor attraction and anything that can change that image is very much to be welcomed," he said.
Literature academics have also welcomed the adaptation.
Sarah Edwards, professor of Victorian and Edwardian literature at the University of Strathclyde, said moving the book's setting from Yorkshire to India is a great way to explore Heathcliffe's racial heritage. In the book he is described as being dark and swarthy, with many literary historians believing Emily Bronte may have conceived him as a Romany.
Like Landon-Smith, Edwards said Bollywood is a natural home for Bronte's tale.
"Bollywood is quite melodramatic and melodrama encompasses both very positive and negative emotions," she said. "Wuthering Heights is very gothic, and gothic is very melodramatic, like Bollywood.
"They both deal with quite stereotyped characters. But a lot depends on the director and the casting. If it's not done well, it could be overblown."
Tamasha's production of Wuthering Heights debuts at the Oldham Colosseum next March before touring the UK. (Ed McCracken)
Emily Brontë's eternal love story Wuthering Heights has inspired about 30 adaptations. Each new version clamours to set itself apart from the rest.The Independent quotes Wuthering Heights in an article about fusion across the arts:
Deepak Verma has found the perfect way to make his telling of the tragic love story stand out from the crowd. He has moved the story wholesale from the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors to the sun-scorched desert of Rajasthan.
Heathcliff becomes Krishan and song-and-dance numbers a la classic Bollywood movies become part of the script.
"People who love the novel understand that it's a universal story. To me it's about a kid with nothing brought up in a house where he sees the good life and where he meets the love of his life," says Verma.
"Reading the story, I found a real parallel, because of the social structures and all the other frameworks of the story, with today's India.
"It might seem strange to some people to relate Victorian England with modern India, but the issues of class and society and all those big things are there in the story and in today's India. I wanted to embrace that with this piece."
The project has been a labour of love for Verma, who has spent almost five years seeing his original idea go from concept to stage.(...)
But it takes some guts to bring a new version of Wuthering Heights to Yorkshire.
"I'm really excited about it coming to Yorkshire. It's the last venue on the nationwide tour and we're going to be really celebrating when it comes to an end next week," says Verma.
Not even a little nervous?
"It's been really well received and we're talking to people about it going into the West End. I think that helps, the fact that it has been so well received."
He doesn't seem to quite grasp the gravity of the situation. He has not just moved one of Yorkshire's greatest novels to Rajasthan, but has also, judging by early reports, fair butchered the story.
Verma's version features Catherine and Heathcliff and their love story, but does not follow the latter half of the novel and the story of their children.
"I took a long look at it and had to decide what story from all of this I wanted to tell in the two hours that I had on stage," says Verma.
"And it was clear to me that the story I really wanted to tell was the eternal love story between Cathy and Heathcliff."
Verma finally reveals the other reason he is confident that Yorkshire audiences won't simply be up in arms and see it as sacrilegious.
Brontë's book, clearly, is the major source of inspiration for the new play.
But Verma has also returned to the classic age of Bollywood of the Fifties and Sixties for his inspiration.
"The stories from Bollywood of that era are about big emotions and big stories. It seemed a perfect fit for this story and particularly the way I wanted to tell it. I wanted to take the aesthetic of those classic movies and bring that to the stage as a part of this story. It just made sense to me," says Verma.
The musical has already secured a loyal – and culturally diverse – following at its London performances. Verma says that Indian audiences are fiercely loyal to shows that they enjoy, but the universal nature of the story has brought in people from all cultures.
The show has been developed and produced by Tamasha, one of the leading Asian theatre companies in the country.
Run by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar, who played Sanjay's love interest Meena in Eastenders, the company was set up almost 20 years ago. Its name is taken from the Punjabi word meaning commotion, and it was established to address the paucity of Asian work on British stages.
Verma says that it is recognised now not as a leading Asian company, but a leading "theatre company whose work has an Asian slant to it".
"The reason I wanted to tell Wuthering Heights on stage was because I have always felt a real connection to the character of Heathcliff," says Verma.
He says he was also always attracted to the darkness of the novel.
"I love the images of the dark moors, but for me, the key to Wuthering Heights is the love story that is at its centre. That's why it works perfectly as a Bollywood musical."
Wuthering Heights is at Harrogate Theatre, June 16 to 20. (Nick Ahad)
The worry now is that the concept could soon buckle with the strain of carrying so many disparate meanings – some contradictory – and market pressures. "Fusion" for example, describes Chadha's populist pastiche Bride and Prejudice as well as the new, colourful production of Wuthering Heights by theatre company Tamasha, which transports the story to Rajasthan using both Bollywood and British musical theatre styles, a combo previously served up in Bombay Dreams. Audiences do love such productions of borrowing and cheek. (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown)The Telegraph interviews Tom Hardy and several mentions to Wuthering Heights 2009 slip in (with the eternal will be on ITV1 later this year):
Hardy’s also played Charles Bronson, the notoriously violent prisoner, and Bill Sikes. And he’s going to be Heathcliff in ITV1’s upcoming version of Wuthering Heights. In episode one of that he bashes his head against a wall with such force that you can hear a crunch. (...)We were afraid that someone would link together the results of the Ryan Commission in Ireland and Jane Eyre and it has happened. In The Independent or the Irish Times:
In a preview of the ITV1 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it’s hard to tell whether Hardy’s Heathcliff is going to hit or kiss his Cathy (who will be played by his The Take co-star Charlotte Riley) – which is just how you want him. And there’s a tenderness to his performance that he hasn’t had the chance to show before now. (Serena Davies)
"Some of us read the Bronte's accounts of what their powers-that-be did to orphans. We were horrified. It gave us bad dreams. But it was fiction. That was the great thing. It was fiction. It hadn't happened. Not really. And certainly not in Ireland. Now, we know different. Now, we know, courtesy of the Ryan Commission, that, within living memory and within our own country, we visited comparable horrors on our children. Let us not hide behind euphemisms. This was not just 'failure to protect'. This was torture, pure and simple." (Lise Hand)The Books on Film Examiner talks about Robert Pattinson and suggests a period piece for the actor:
Would you pick a "period" piece such as his part as the older Rawdy Crawley in Vanity Fair based on the classic novel by William Thackeray (that subsequently got cut but put back in for the DVD)? A Jane Austen or Bronte novel, perhaps? How about another biopic, something like his role as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes? (Connie Ann Kirk)And the St Petersburg Times reviews Jack Murnighan's Beowulf on the Beach:
Then he offers, for each book, the Buzz, which he defines as "your cocktail party Ph.D." — what most people know about the book whether they've read it or not. (A Farewell to Arms is a great war novel, Jane Eyre's title character is a fine role model for girls.)(Colette Bancroft)Hungtington News selects Jayne Eyre (sic) and Wuthering Heights as favorite romantic movies. The Banned Books Group recommends both novels as Urgent Reads: The 20 Books You Must Read This Year!, in the Rockland Republican Journal. The Worksop Guardian talks about an awarded local teacher with a Brontë project:
Since winning the award, the Valley teacher has brought in a new lesson plan for Wuthering Heights that includes group discussions and presentation that prompted quiet murmurings of applause from her pupils. (Tom Glover)The Times (South-Africa) concludes this article about reading love stories with a mention to Wuthering Heights:
I’m a collection called My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a book of classic love stories edited by Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides, offered as “a cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery.” I like the idea that reading saves marriages; it should be used in literacy campaigns. The book includes stories by Anton Chekhov - The Lady with the Little Dog, which recently starred in the film of The Reader– Alice Munro Denis Johnson, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. With such a variety of well-written takes on everything love related you might as well just marry this book. I’m sure that by the time I finish it, the sun will shine and I can finally fall asleep without artificial assistance. Until then, if you’re reading this, I still like to imagine you as Heathcliff to my Cathy, throwing yourself on my grave when you realize your mistake and I’m using the book to disguise myself as I sit, watching your building, waiting to see what you’re reading now. (Tymon Smith)On the blogosphere, Love Romance Passion interviews the author Sandy Lender, an absolute Jane Eyre fan (as we posted before):
10. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?When You're Happy, I'm Happy =D and Giraffe Days post about Wuthering Heights, Hey, Little Sister talks about samplers, embroidery and the Brontës, ihartyou23 finds echoes of Emily Brontë's novel in the Filipino soap opera Tayond Dalawa.Sandy Lender: This might seem a wee bit odd, but in addition to my Choices Meant for Gods, I would encourage folks also to read Jane Eyre,
by Charlotte Bronte. This novel is one of the best ever written. It’s my favorite of all time. There are elements in Jane Eyre that influence my writing on a conscious and subconscious level, and folks who have already read the book will probably pick out a few of those elements in Choices Meant for Gods.
Ever imagined Emily Bronte's classic tragedy 'Wuthering Heights' with its backdrop in Rajasthan? Well, that's what you'll witness if you happen to see Oldham Coliseum's latest production, which showcases the romantic tale on stage, but with an Indian touch.Another recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights is the one made by ITV, screened early this year in the USA and finally to be broadcast at an unknown date in the UK later this year. Manchester Evening News talks to Sarah Lancashire, who played Nelly Dean:
London-based British Asian theatre company Tamasha is staging an Indian-version play based on the famous novel at the Coliseum, reports Times Online.
The names of the main characters in the play would be Krishnan, instead of Heathcliff, and Shakuntula, rather than Cathy.
The costumes are Indian rather than 19th-century British, and the setting is the deserts of Rajasthan, not the Yorkshire moors.
Even the soundtrack has been given a Bollywood touch, rather than Kate Bush.
And starring in the lead roles are Youkti Patel (Shakuntula/Cathy), and Pushpinder Chani (Krishnan/ Heathcliff), from Tamasha.
They are all set to take the Indian version of Wuthering Heights on a tour of seven other theatres around Britain from Exeter to Glasgow.
The show's originators said that there was already an Indian link to Wuthering Heights- Merle Oberon, who starred as Cathy in the classic 1939 Hollywood film version with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, was born in Bombay, now Mumbai.
She has also filmed the role of housekeeper Nelly Dean in a new ITV1 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, finally due to be screened later this year.The New York Post has an article on this year's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, which is given tomorrow. Anne Landsman, author of The Rowing Lesson, is one of the five contenders:
There were fears that the network, which only pays for a production in full when it is broadcast, might not be able to afford to transmit the £3m drama.“I saw it last week and it’s beautiful. It’s an epic piece, in an epic setting with epic problems,” comments Sarah. (Ian Wylie)
"Being a Jewish writer is such a gift," Landsman says. "We straddle several traditions, cultures, histories, giving us access to such a wealth of ideas. I'm a South African, Lithuanian, American Jew, who grew up speaking fluent Afrikaans (as my second language), loved Shakespeare, Bronte and Dickens, and went to cheder three times a week. All of these strands influence who I am, and how I write and they connect with people all over the globe." (Abby Wisse Schachter)Karin Alvtegen, author of Shadow, also seems to owe something to the Brontës according to Eurocrime:
One often reads the word "unputdownable" to describe a book – it is certainly a true description of this one. As the novel reaches its climax, I was on the edge of my seat, my heart was pounding, and by the end I felt wrecked. It has strong parallels with Wuthering Heights, in which two "normal" people (Gerda as Nelly Dean and Marianne as Lockwood) are the filter through which the reader experiences elemental, horrifically tragic and passionate events that are beyond the witness-narrators' comprehension. (Maxine Clarke)Dorothy Graham poses an interesting question in response to a past article featured in The Globe and Mail:
It is ridiculous for Candice Olson to wonder how a child with a large, airy bedroom with a bay window and "hand-me-down" furniture could "possibly create in a space so lacking imagination" (A Room For A Little Girl And A Young Woman To Be - Real Estate, March 20). Does she think that the Brontë sisters or Jane Austen or Charles Dickens needed "design" elements such as "self-adhesive flower appliqués" or a "customized tangerine headboard tufted with fuchsia buttons" in order to dream and be imaginative?A couple of blogs also introduce us to more Brontëites: Mosaic Art Source Blog posts about the artist Shannon Landis Hansen who 'loved books, reading Dickens, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters'. In Bed with Books interviews YA author Susan Fine, who used to be a teacher and states that she loved teaching Jane Eyre.
British-born choreographer Cathy Marston has joined the (now depressingly diminishing) ranks of female ballet directors with her recent appointment to run Bern:Ballett. The post also gives her wider opportunities to create work, and as she brings the Swiss company over for its debut British season, Marston also gives the UK a premiere of Wuthering Heights. Marston has always delivered a refreshing slant on the concept of the story ballet, her approach less a literal narration of events than a subtle delving of emotional and psychological subtext. Hopefully, with Wuthering Heights, there will be a minimum of blasted heaths and gothic symbolism and instead a choreographed focus on Brontë's themes of desire, revenge and transgression. The ballet is a collaboration with dramaturge Edward Kemp and composer David Maric, whose score has been specially commissioned. (Judith Mackrell)The second one is Tamasha's Wuthering Heights. The Northern Echo publishes an interview with Deepak Verma where besides talking about the current theatrical production, explains details of the cinematographical adaptation project:
Ex-EastEnder Deepak Verma is confident that an Indian Wuthering Heights is a winner.The Southampton performances of the play (June 2-6) are presented on the Southern Daily Echo.
THE race is on to find a Bollywood movie with the international clout of Mamma Mia! and ex- EastEnders actor Deepak Verma feels he has a frontrunner with a stage musical based on Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights.
“This is a romance which transcends any lifetime, it’s something that will be there forever.
It’s a great parallel to all the beliefs in Indian culture. The British social hierarchy in which this is set is like the Indian caste system,” he says of the storyline of the poor boy who can never marry a rich man’s daughter.
North-East theatregoers can judge for themselves next week when the turbulent romance of Heathcliff and Cathy, reset from the Yorkshire Moors to the desert of Rajasthan and starring Krishan (Pushpinder Chani) and Shakuntala (Youkti Patel), arrives at Northern Stage from Wednesday to Saturday. “I love the story of a character who changes the whole balance. In this case, Krishan/Heathcliff goes away to become a bigger man than the one Cathy marries because he wants her so much. The whole thing is a feast for the senses and we’ve set it in the most colourful and exciting part of India,”says Verma,.
This is Verma’s second project with the Tamasha company and artistic director Kristine Landon-Smith, who first captured the attention of the world with East is East in 1999. The two worked on Ghostdancing, an Indian reworking of Zola’s Therese Raquin, about lovers murdering a husband, before gaining Oldham Coliseum and Lyric Hammersmith backing for Wuthering Heights.
Designer Sue Mayes travelled to Rajasthan to research the set and costumes and Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee have composed the music weaving in authentic folklore tunes.
Verma is still famous to millions as the womanising market trader Sanjay Kapoor but, since he left the wiles of Walford in 1998, the actor has also moved into writing and TV and film production as boss of Pukkanasha Films. He’s just spent five days at the Cannes Film Festival pitching his own romantic comedy Johnny Bollywood and seeking backers for Wuthering Heights the movie.
“I’m not a musician but the story, the book and the idea were all mine. I did need the help of a lyricist. We then picked out the parts of the book we wanted and focused on turning them into a musical. The great thing about Tamasha and Kristine Landon- Smith, who is also directing, is that she is very forward thinking. The company has created the Bollywood bandwagon that others are jumping on. We’re keen to take it further and we’re already working on taking it into the West End. I’m also putting together a movie project,” adds Verma, who spent four years bringing Wuthering Heights to the stage.
“I could never be just an actor, although I have been, I’ve got a lot of good stories I want to bring to the world. Sometimes you have to go where the love is… and at the moment everyone is pushing this project.
Wuthering Heights will be filmed in India but we’re still in negotiations to see if its going to be an Indian, British or American production team. It’s like the Bollywood Mamma Mia! but even if it’s two per cent successful as that we’ll be happy,” he says.
Verma will be unhappy with an international cast approach and points out that Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire didn’t set out to become a worldwide success. “It was an Indian film about an Indian character, but it broke out because it had integrity and Danny Boyle is an amazing director,” says the globetrotting film company boss who is heading for New York next.
Uitstekend nieuws voor liefhebbers van knellende hemdsboorden, grove bakkebaarden en strakke korsetten: op Eén staat vanavond het eerste deel van 'Wuthering Heights' geprogrammeerd, naar de klassieke roman van Emily Brontë.A picnic in Haworth is what The Independent suggests in a 50 Best Picnic Spots article:
Grootste troef van dit kostuumdrama: een somberende (anti)held die in geen enkel opzicht moet onderdoen voor Mr. Darcy, de afstandelijke romanticus die van de adaptatie van Jane Austens 'Sense and Sensibility' zo'n succes maakte. De rol van Heathcliff wordt gespeeld door Tom Hardy, een acteur die er zelf ook een woelig verleden op nahoudt. (Google translation)
Five minutes’ walk from the centre of the brooding West Yorkshire village of Haworth – famously the site of the Brönte Parsonage – miles of heather moorland begin. Strike out here on a sunny day and find a rocky outcrop to "enjoy the vibrantly coloured views whilst tucking into a tasty picnic", advises Laurence. (Rhiannon Batten)The Daily Telegraph (Australia) has an article about the use of 'weather language' in literature. The Brontës are doubly mentioned:
Wild weather also loomed large as an expression of unnatural goings-on in the works of the Bronte sisters' classics.Mint (India) talks about first and second novels:
At the very outset of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Lockwood is trapped at Heathcliff's house by a storm. While there, he dreams of a ghost and awakens in terror, screaming, thus setting off the events of the novel.
Emily's sister Charlotte also uses the device in Jane Eyre.
Just as Jane accepts the already married Rochester's marriage proposal, wild winds stir and the skies open, and heaven's displeasure at the unnatural and sinful prospect of a bigamous marriage is registered in no uncertain terms. (Chris Hook)
The Times’ Top 10 list of “Cursed Second Novels” includes some of the best-known names in fiction: Norman Mailer, Charlotte Bronte, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Irvine Welsh.The Globe and Mail visits the Abney Park Cemetery in London. The article includes Brontë sightings:Others have escaped inclusion by either never attempting another full-length novel—J.D. Salinger, for example, limited himself to novellas and short stories in the wake of Catcher in the Rye—or by simply never writing again, as did Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee, Emily Bronte and Arundhati Roy (though she recently announced her return to fiction, and is supposedly working on her second novel).(Lakshmi Chaudhry)
Just then a man steps out from the side of the chapel. He's tall, bearded, wearing a long coat. It's a moment straight out of Great Expectations or maybe Wuthering Heights : Here is Heathcliff's spectre haunting the deserted grange. My instinct is to walk casually in the other direction, but David's gaze is fixed forward. The scene is too perfect, too literary, and it transcends his regular social mores. He steps toward the man. (Martha Schabas)The Age publishes an extract from Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman. The extract contains a quote from G.K. Chesterton that can be of interest to the readers of this blog:
G. K. Chesterton tried to defend Austen's understanding of male psychology, even if her knowledge of male physicality seems a little limited. "(When Darcy says) 'I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice though not in theory' ... he gets nearer to a complete confession of the intelligent male than was ever hinted by the Byronic lapses of the Brontes' heroes or the elaborate exculpations of George Eliot's."The quote is from The Victorian Age in Literature (Chapter 2), 1913.
Did you ever read Wuthering Heights? That is one screwed up book. Nobody is normal. But it’s “romantic.” Let me define “romantic”: you think something should be a certain way because you feel so strongly about it. You think you deserve someone who is, frankly, out of your league, so you won’t “settle.”Público (Portugal) publishes the obituary of the Portuguese historian João Bénard da Costa. Talking about his articles on cinema, he links together Emily Brontë and James Mason (!):
Ou Emily Brontë a propósito de James Mason, "a voz". (Alexandra Lucas Coelho) (Google translation)Diario de Sevilla (Spain) publishes an article about women, books and memories:
Gran verdad que se demuestra en la memoria agradecida que todos guardamos de quienes nos contagiaron la lectura. Apele cada lector a su memoria infantil. En mi caso, al igual que en el de Savater, está mi madre leyendo a Agatha Christie, Edgard Wallace, Erle Stanley Gardner o Rafael Sabatini en las ediciones de quiosco de la Biblioteca Oro de Editorial Molino; y a las Brönte, Pereda, Galdós o Palacio Valdés en los gustosos volúmenes de Aguilar que -buen cuero envejecido con nobleza- conservo. (Carlos Colón) (Google translation)Jane Campion's latest film Bright Star is reviewed on ÉcranLarge:
On en ressort un peu sur le flanc avec l'envie de relire Les Hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë. (Sandy Gillet) (Google translation)Le Matin (Switzerland) interviews the author Guillaume Musso who once again shows his Brontëiteness:
Avec ce nouveau livre, vous avez à nouveau laissé le grand romantique qui est en vous prendre la plume. Vous retrouvez-vous dans ce terme?Briefer notes: The Times' Travel section devotes an article to a walk around Hebden Waster, in Brontë country, Erodiade2008 on YouTube reads two poems by Emily Brontë in Italian and in English, Sashika Corea has two posts on Jane Eyre and Heathcliff.
Il ne me gêne pas, mais je n'aime pas le terme «romantique» au sens «fleur bleue». Plus jeune, j'aimais bien le romantisme des auteurs anglais comme Emily Brontë ou Jane Austen. Mes histoires incorporent toutes une histoire d'amour, mais l'amour au sens large: familial, amoureux ou d'amitié. Toutes les sortes d'amour m'intéressent. (Anne-Sylvie Sprenger) (Google translation)
The Oldham Coliseum has unveiled their new season and the highlights include Only When I Laugh, a new comedy written by and starring Jack Shepherd, best known for his role as Detective Superintendant Charles Wycliffe. There is also the premiere of a Bollywood version of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, by leading British Asian Company Tamasha. [...]Twilight - the movie - reviewed by The Philipine Star:
Kevin Shaw, Chief Executive of the Coliseum Theatre comments, “I’m absolutely delighted by the choice of plays and events which we have planned for the new season.
There really is something for everyone – plays such as Blithe Spirit and Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis promise to have the audience rolling in the aisles whilst for those who want something a little different, Tamasha’s Bollywood version of Wuthering Heights promises to be a great hit.”
With another Twilight movie in a year or so do you think we should be concerned that millions of teenaged girls all over the world are now in love with a vampire? Maybe. But I do recall that I was in love with the darkly brooding Heathcliff when I was their age many years ago. I still see the hero or maybe anti-hero of Wuthering Heights as a close cousin to Edward. I think that Meyer thinks so too because Bella’s English class was studying Wuthering Heights in the story. (Baby A. Gil)And Studio One's Wuthering Heights on DVD, recommended by PopMatters.
“Studio One Anthology” (Koch Vision, 1949-55, $99.98) This groundbreaking series presented live dramas each week on CBS. The 6-disc contains 17 of those shows taken from kinescope recordings. The quality is amazingly good. Among the performers are Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston, Lee Remick, Art Carney, Eva Marie Saint and Leslie Nielsen. Some of the productions are “1984,” “Twelve Angry Men,” “Julius Caesar” and “Wuthering Heights.” A great DVD release of an important piece of television history. (Doug Nye)And now for something that will without the shadow of a doubt be big news as soon as it hits the American screens in January: the new Wuthering Heights. PopWatch is looking forward to seeing Tom Hardy:
You may remember him as: Failed Picard clone Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis or RocknRolla’s Handsome Bob. Look for him: as Heathcliff in Masterpiece’s Wuthering Heights (premieres January 18th) and Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist (February 15th). (Aubry D’Arminio)Singer Andrea McEwan is interviewed by Altsounds:
Altsounds: 'Candle in a Chatroom' comments on romance in the Internet age. You're quoted as saying "as someone who grew up on a diet of Bronte, Austen and Shakespeare, it made me sad to think that perhaps the reign of 'romance' was over." In terms of something as fundamental as love do you really think that romance might be over? Do you feel you're a more romantic person than most people?Today three blogs write about Wuthering Heights, the novel: Endcap, Real Book and To the Lighthouse. Olde-Fashioned has designed and uploaded several icons related to the Victorian era which include a few Jane Eyre ones.
Andrea McEwan: I can in no way judge how ‘romantic’ I am in relation to other people but I can say that yes I am a romantic. Unashamedly. I must also make the distinction here between romance and love – they are different beasts. Romance in my opinion is how love is courted, how it is tended. I think there is no denying that the way that we court love has changed and is changing very rapidly. This song is not a judgment but rather an observation.
The time has come and Tamasha Theatre's Wuthering Heights is finally premiered today March 13 in Oldham.A Tamasha and Oldham Coliseum Theatre Production in association with the Lyric Hammersmith.Wuthering HeightsA new promotional video can be watched on youtube:
Original concept and book: Deepak Verma
Additional text: Sudhar Bhuchar
Created by Tamasha
Directed by Kristine Landon-Smith
Music by Sheema Mukherjee & Felix Cross
Lyrics by Felix Cross
Performed by Adeel Akhtar, Shammi Aulakh, Pushpinder Chani, Rina Fatania, Anil Kumar, Divian Ladwa, Sheena Patel, Youkti Patel, Davina Perera, Gary Pillai, Amith Rahman / Playback singers: Irvine Iqbal, Najam Javed, Ambika Jois, Shaheen Khan, Kartik Raghunathan
Choreography by Nikki Woollaston
Design by Sue Mayes
Lighting by Itai Erdal
Sound design by Mike Furness
Musical Supervisor: John Rigby
Orchestrations and Arrangements by John Rigby & Chandru of Bollywood Strings
Lighting design by Itai Erdal
Casting by Jill Green CDG
"Wuthering Heights": the final stages of rehearsals for this new Bollywood-inspired staging of Emily Bronte's classic novel with the director, actors, and writers talking about the show.
"Wuthering Heights" is on tour in the UK from March - June 2009. Filmed by Lewis-Charlaff productions www.barrylewisphotography.com
Fri 13 – Sat 28 Mar 2009More information in Broadway World.
Coliseum Theatre, OLDHAM
0161 624 2829
£5 - £18.50 | Tickets and info >
Tue 7 – Sat 11 Apr 2009
Exeter Northcott, EXETER
01392 493493
£12 - £20 | Tickets and info >
Tue 21 – Sat 25 Apr 2009
Citizens Theatre, GLASGOW
0141 429 0022
£7 - £17 | Tickets and info >
Wed 29 Apr – Sat 23 May 2009
Lyric Hammersmith, LONDON
0871 22 117 29
£10 - £27 | Tickets and info >
Wed 27 –Sat 30 May 2009
Northern Stage, NEWCASTLE
0191 230 5151
£5.50 - £18.50 | Tickets and info >
Tue 2 – Sat 6 Jun 2009
Nuffield Theatre, SOUTHAMPTON
023 8067 1771
£10 - £18 | Tickets and info >
Tue 9 – Sat 13 Jun 2009
Belgrade Theatre, COVENTRY
024 7655 3055
£9.30 - £11.18 | Tickets and info >
Tue 16 – Sat 20 Jun 2009
Harrogate Theatre, HARROGATE
01423 502 116
£11 - £15 | Tickets and info >
Unless explicitly said
