Wuthering Heights

 On Saturday, we went to Berkeley to see Wuthering Heights at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. This presentation was an adaptation by Emma Rice which originated in Britain with the Young Vic of Bristol and a group called Wise Children. She added music and a character identified as The Moors, reflecting that crucial element of Emily Bronte's novel: the Yorkshire moors where she and her sisters and brother grew up and lived most of their short lives.

Wuthering Heights needs some changes from the novel to work onstage. But some aspects of this novel can't really be altered all that much. The critical moment--the climax--comes when Heathcliff returns just as Cathy is going to expire. This classic scene draws the audience in, much as it undoubtedly did in the 1938 movie starring Laurence Olivier in possibly his greatest romantic role, with Merle Oberon as Cathy. It ends the long first act just as it concludes the first half of the novel. 

Everything that comes after it--in the novel, the movie, or onstage--always seems somewhat anticlimactic to me. The novel's story is told by a long-time family servitor, Nelly, who for whatever reason is absent from this production. No great matter--since we really don't need or even want a narrator. One other character I missed was the servant at Wuthering Heights, the house, a scary sort of presence named Joseph. In the novel, he adds to the weird atmosphere of Wuthering Heights.

Many of the cast members played several parts, which was fine. One actor played Cathy's husband, the weak Edgar Linton, as well as Lockwood, the visitor who inspires Nelly to tell the whole story. Both Heathcliff and Cathy were well-played. Heathcliff had the power that is crucial to the character, and Cathy was both strong and weird--then in one line, she lets out that she went and married Linton when Heathcliff disappeared for three years because she thought marrying into that family would make her "a great lady."

She, of course, undervalued the wild and violent love that had grown between Heathcliff and her, as each saw that the other contained something of themself. The second act features the next generation, as well as a Heathcliff who aims to control the actions of everyone else, and the weak Edgar Linton who wants to guide his daughter, also Cathy, away from any involvement with Heathcliff or his slight son Linton, who, though ridiculously slight and weak, exudes determination. 

There's also Hareton, son of Cathy's older brother, Hindley, who when he inherited Wuthering Heights, abused Heathcliff and for his pains, turned to drink, from whhich he dies, after his wife Frances died in childbirth giving birth to Hareton. None of the three new second-generation characters can come close to the power generated between Heathcliff and Cathy.

It's a compelling story and it was exciting to see it onstage, but it remains a highly challenging piece to turn into a successful drama in the theater.