You’re grim. Bleak. Dark. We expected this. Your Director, Emma Rice, had explained that your story has been ‘dressed up as a romance by Hollywood over the years, but it’s really not. It’s a revenge tragedy.’ Heck, your content warning lists ‘strong language, violence, firearms, whips, death and blackouts.’ So we came prepared for all the drama and devastation you wanted to throw at us.
What we didn’t expect, however, was that you’d also be funny. Not a pretentious kind of funny, but an overt, slapstick kind of funny. You floor us with everything raw and messy, and then you make us laugh. Dark and light, over and over. It doesn’t seem like that should work, but it’s one of your most brilliant tricks.
You’re also highly self-aware. You know your story is impossibly complicated. You even poke fun of that, with one of your characters lamenting that there are ‘so many people, with names that are all so similar’. We’re grateful for your cheeky mid-show pauses to get out the chalk and blackboards (literally) to remind us who is who, how they’re related, and who is now, in fact, dead. Yes, there is so much death that the doctor himself is almost a principal character in this story.
You’ve stuck closely to the plot from the gothic Victorian novel by Emily Bronte (which is why your run time is three hours long). Mr Earnshaw, who resides in Wuthering Heights on the Yorkshire Moors with his children, Hindley and Catherine, takes in a new child, Heathcliff. The child ends up violently bullied by Hindley, but forms a strong connection with Catherine – a relationship that forms the focal point of the rest of this intergenerational story.
Your cast are inspiring. John Leader (Heathcliff) is chilling throughout his long quest for vengeance. Matthew Churcher (Hindley/Hareton) is the perfect villain. Sam Archer and Rebecca Collingwood, as the Linton siblings, are hilarious. (Collingwood even more so when she returns as Little Linton). Robyn Sinclair (Frances/Young Cathy) is the beacon of innocence and love that keeps the show’s heart beating. And Stephanie Hockley (Catherine) is a complete rockstar – a tragic, messy, expletive-fueled, mike-dropping rockstar.
But it’s actually The Moors themselves that steal the show. Personified into a singing and dancing chorus, led by Nandi Bhebhe, who narrates the story in a way not unlike a Greek Tragedy. The music of The Moors is enough to add a heightened level of emotion to the story, but never for long enough to detract from it. And the style is a completely unique blend of folk melodies, period drama soundscape, and potentially a bit of John Butler Trio meets Kate-Miller Heidke. At any rate, it’s edgier than Kate Bush’s cult hit ‘Wuthering Heights’ (for anyone who already had that song stuck in their head by this point).
Yes, Wuthering Heights, you manage to present us with star-crossed lovers who are, for the most part, cruel and violent. And yet, after everything we’ve seen, we still leave the theatre feeling strangely optimistic. You’re a good reminder that wherever there’s dark, there will also (eventually) be some light. As we said, that’s one of your greatest tricks.
With love,
Wuthering Heights is showing at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until 15 February 2025. Images: Wuthering Heights Australia
Leave a Reply