Wuthering Heights - REX Manchester

[BurlyBeaR]

 

WUTHERING HEIGHTS


By Emily Brontë. A new version by Andrew Sheridan. Directed by Bryony Shanahan

7 FEBRUARY - 7 MARCH 2020

“Will you be happy when I’m just dust, floating in the air?”

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. Visceral and vicious, tender and true: Emily Brontë never felt quite like this before.

[crowblack]

The whole season looks great - I'm properly 'yeah!' for this in a way I haven't felt about London theatres for a while.

[david]

If they don't use the Kate Bush song in this production, I'll be really disappointed. Joking aside, I really good line up of productions at the REX for the winter season.

[crabtree]

What? no gender swap?

[david]

I was at today’s matinee. When this production was announced I wondered how the designer would recreate Bronte’s Yorkshire setting and walking into the auditorium, I couldn’t help but feel that the BBC’s GroundForce team had been hard at work to recreate the Yorkshire Moors within the REX. There was plenty of follage and fake rocks to evoke the senses of the Yorkshire setting.

The cast are were in period costume for the production, though I was rather surprised by the Playwright Andrew Sheridan’s decision to make some deviations from the original 1847 text. There was quite a few occasions of swearing in this, not that it bothered me, but it didn’t really add any value to the original text. There was one brief moment of nudity early on froM Alex Austin as Heathcliff which although was mentioned in the info email about this production certainly surprised a few of today’s patrons who where sat straight in front of the actor in question during that brief scene. One interesting staging choice was to use 2 local musicians in the production to give a more ghostly/haunting sound to proceeedings. I’m a bit gutted that the Kate Bush somg wasn’t used at any point over the show. A wasted opportunity I feel.

The cast performances I felt really were a mixed bag. Alex Austin and Rakhee Sharna as Heathcliff and Cathy worked well and had real chemistry, but the one cast member who irked me was Dean Fagan as Edgar. In Act 1 I felt he was far to comedic in his acting but yet in Act 2 he was far more darker and serious in the role. For me because of this wildly different performances, it didn’t really make any sense to take this approach.

This is definitely a marmite production. Listening to conversations during the interval from other patrons, some enjoyed this production whilst others felt the acting was very amateur dramatics in style. Certainly returning to my seat for Act 2, there was a fair few empty seats both around me and in other sections of the stage seating level. Whilst Act 2 was definitely the stronger Act with a bit more depth and emotion, I didn’t come away from this thinking I had seen something special. It was ok, but not great. Certainly I think the 2-3⭐️critic reviews are a fair assessment of this production.

[Deleted]

We get loads of reviews for Manchester shows in sundry publications and they are nearly all four star ones. The more national ones are about a three star average, though. Seems to be more one for non-purists, having had a quick read of them.

EDIT: There’s a hell of a lot of Wuthering around tonight, the storm seems to be getting stronger.

[theatre241]

I really enjoyed this production but I haven't seen or read Wuthering Heights so I had no expectation really but would highly recommend it

[crabtree]

Oh I struggled with this - the screaming rock music, the literal plants on the geometric flat shapes, and drama school 'movement', the singer looking on so earnestly; everything seems so inconsistent, with much rain, but none of the snow they kept mentioning, and very emotionally cold. No emotion at all. yep they had more fruity language than Emily B could have imagined, and some very modern phrasing. the audience of mainly drama students went crazy for it, but I rather loathed it, for all the cast's hard work. The exchange can seem so perverse at times, deliberately throwing everything in to the mix, deliberately trying to be controversial rather than fresh. But then sometimes they get it so right. Actually, Nellie was rather good tonight, and believable - probably one fo the few characters not eternally running round the assault course of the set. And yes, foliage everywhere in the first half, and all removed for the second half - so the moors vanished? Must try harder, Exchange. actually, try less hard.

[marob]

I saw this a couple of weeks ago and thought it was pretty poor. Not awful, but not very good either. It doesn't give you a sense of why this is a classic story. And I don't get why Heathcliff suddenly starts acting like one of the Sex Pistols...

There were two old ladies sitting behind me, one had read the novel and one hadn't, but they both hated it. The family of four I was sitting next to left at the interval. Not the best start for one of the new ADs. She's directing Let the Right One In in a few months, I hope it doesn't end up just being a retread of this.