Review: Wuthering Heights, Bristol Old Vic

Live theatre is back. With Wuthering Heights, Bristol Old Vic is celebrating a momentous return: to a full house, a bustling bar and that buzz of anticipation that you only get before a show. And what a show they have chosen to reopen with.

Co-produced by National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and York Theatre Royal, Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights is an extraordinary, electrifying piece of theatre, and a wild ride that seems to hurtle through its three-hour run time.

Director Emma Rice was first drawn to the text in the 1980s, when she turned to the gothic punk aesthetic to express the anger, frustration and sorrow she felt as a teen.

But it was scenes of unaccompanied children in the Calais Jungle in 2016 that reawakened her affinity for the story in adulthood, finding in Heathcliff and Catherine’s fate new layers of meaning for the contemporary era.

“Something triggered in my brain. Wasn’t Heathcliff an unaccompanied child?” she writes in the programme.

“No longer intoxicated by impossible passions and unresolved griefs, I saw a story not only of romance but of brutality, cruelty and revenge. This was a gothic romance, this was a tragedy; a tragedy of what might happen if, as a society, we allow cruelty to take hold.”

Rice transforms the doomed, sprawling romance of the novel into an “intoxicating revenge tragedy for our time” that manages to retain its sense of creeping menace while being never at odds with the theatrical.

“This production is epic, the characters superhuman; Catherine, Heathcliff and Hareton the Gods of Chaos, Revenge and Hope”.

Her chosen aesthetic sits somewhere between the epic gothic tale of Emily Brontë’s 1847 masterpiece, and the best gig ever.

It is shot through with a pervasive musical score that is as much a character in the production as the chorus of The Moor, a glorious shapeshifting collective of singing and dancing cast members narrating the tale, offering counsel to its main protagonists as the Earnshaw and Linton dynasties are played out before us.

Tony Award winner (for A Christmas Carol, 2020) Simon Baker’s sound design brings together a heady musical mix of punk, post-punk, folk styles and beautiful composition from Ian Ross, with on-stage musicians Sid Goldsmith, Nadine Lee and Renell Shaw, gliding seamlessly between mournful, strident and ultimately hopeful tones.

Lucy McCormick as Cathy, Ash Hunter as Heathcliff and Nandi Bhebhe as The Leader of Moor – photo: Steve Tanner

Surfing on the wave of energy that pulsates through the auditorium, Catherine McCormick’s wide-eyed, wild-haired Catherine is an electrifying presence, arriving in her Vivienne Westwood heels and wailing into a microphone, vital, mesmeric and untouchable as a rock goddess.

“I am Heathcliff!,” she proclaims. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Perhaps she is emblematic of the trauma that inner turmoil can wreak; the self destruction that will unravel us when we cannot live with ourselves.

And so it proves – when she is forced apart from the kindred spirit she had found in Heathcliff, Catherine is consigned to haunting him from beyond the grave, a constant absent presence, stalking behind him throughout the second half. Heathcliff too, is caught in a paradox; like Roman Emperor Nero, he “cares too much, and yet cares not at all”.

Ash Hunter as Heathcliff is a magnetic force, commanding, volatile and unforgiving. For some, the romantic hero at the mercy of his own fate, and for others, an antagonist driven only by revenge; Rice deliberately blurs those lines and shows us the collective responsibility of revenge, as The Moor chorus repeatedly warns “be careful what you seed”.

TJ Holmes as Robert, Tama Phethean as Hindley Earnshaw and Hareton Earnshaw, Witney White as Frances Earnshaw and Young Cathy, Ash Hunter as Heathcliff and Jordan Laviniere as John – photo: Steve Tanner

The innovation and artistry woven into the production is Wise Children at its emotionally-charged best, and effectively mirrors the pathetic fallacy woven through Brontë’s novel. The seamless blend of puppetry, design, music and film, and Etta Murfitt’s choreography, is testament to the long-time collaborators working in pursuit of Rice’s artist vision.

Vicki Mortimer’s set features chairs, doors and windows dismantled and reassembled; showing that idea of home can imprison us, but also that out of the ruins, new worlds are built.

A stunning, rolling video sky from Simon Baker provides an atmospheric backdrop that seems to permeate the entire stage. Punctuated by moments of birds in flight – often after the deaths of characters – the unforgiving external landscape of the Yorkshire Moors pervades the inner sanctum, and even the headspaces, of its characters.

Thunderstorms threaten to break down the door, just as Heathcliff clutches the ghost of Catherine, who is not content to resting in the earth but straddles the chasm between life and death.

The supporting cast are universally strong, with standout performances from Nandi Bhebhe as The Leader of the Moor, Katy Owen who delights as Isabella and even more so as Little Linton, and Sam Archer as Edgar Lockwood, who is consigned to an incompatible love for Catherine, as she turns away from him even as he joins her in death, in deference to Heathcliff.

Nandi Bhebhe as The Leader of The Moor, Lucy McCormick as Cathy and Kandaka Moore as Zillah – photo: Steve Tanner

Though much of Wuthering Heights plays out as a Greek Tragedy, the story emerging at the close is one of redemption and hope. There are many moments of levity in the adaptation, not least in the light touch that Rice gives to the translation of the intergenerational complexity of the family trees at play; the names, relationships, nature of time passing, and multiple deaths.

Working closely with the Bristol Old Vic, Wise Children pioneered the digital streaming technology that will now allow audiences to access an exciting hybrid model of live, and live broadcast shows, opening up access for audiences who cannot access the theatre itself, or choose not to.

Those that do come to the auditorium can be reassured by the raft of Covid safety measures put in place by the Bristol Old Vic, alongside the option to access socially distanced shows for those more comfortable with them.

However audiences may choose to access the show, after so long in the planning, it is wonderful to finally see Wuthering Heights on stage. It is a blazing production that punches you in the gut, in a good way, and leaves you beaming.

Wuthering Heights is at Bristol Old Vic until November 6, with livestreamed performances from November 3-6. It then transfers to York Theatre Royal, before a residency at the National Theatre and a UK tour in 2022. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

Main photo: Steve Tanner

Read more: Breakfast with Bristol 24/7: Emma Rice

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