Theatre Review: Wuthering Heights - Young Rep

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte’s tragic masterpiece, sets a story of love and hate against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Moors. Cathy, precocious, intelligent, and at times infuriating, is a beloved literary character whose father returns from his travels one day with a child in tow, the unruly and serially misbehaving Heathcliff. A childhood side by side steeped in love and hate becomes friendship, then something more, something perhaps much worse, more all-consuming and fateful.

I was really excited to see a Black Country production, but this re-contextualisation fell rather flat

The Young Rep are back following last year’s success in their festival of ‘Order and Chaos.’ This year’s theme is ‘Love and Rebellion,’ a great choice with which to explore stories that centre young people. This Wuthering Heights has been re-contextualised to the Black Country in the 90s, though the only indication of this is a classic red West Midlands bus stop and a set resembling a children’s play park. There is a distinct lack of West Midlands accents on stage and some obvious discrepancies: if you have spent any time in and around the Black Country, you will have been made quickly aware that the word is ‘mom’ not ‘mum’, but the script repeatedly uses the latter. There are repeated references to places not in the Black Country and specifically in Bronte’s novel: Gimmerton, Penistone Crag, the Moors themselves. I was really excited to see a Black Country production, but this re-contextualisation fell rather flat. Without any real reference to the place other than a few nods to Birmingham and Coventry being ‘that way’, it seemed fruitless. Far better to take the beautiful landscapes of Wren’s Nest or Sandwell valley, for example, and set it there.

Certainly these young actors are, once again, a credit to themselves. Their hard work is evident, and it is a very challenging play to get to grips with. Their enthusiasm is clear and both sets of Cathy and Heathcliff have convincing stage presence.

These young performers have clearly given it their all

The script itself is hit-and-miss. It has not simply been re-contextualised; the entire story of Wuthering Heights has been re-written. There are maybe two lines from the actual book itself, and at times the plot is unrecognisable. Major character deaths happen out of order, people that should be dead by the interval are not, and Cathy’s rambling injury out on the Moors becomes an unexplained dog attack that is then never brought up again. If you didn’t know the book, it would be very difficult to follow, though this is absolutely not the fault of the actors, and entirely on the sparseness of the script itself. There are some interesting directorial decisions; having the characters repeatedly run up and down sets of stairs during tense moments doesn’t always work, and there’s a rather eclectic choice of music in between scene changes. However, these young performers have clearly given it their all.

There are absolutely some touching moments. Earnshaw’s early death is delivered to Cathy with sensitivity, and her reaction is heartbreaking. Similarly, later tragedies (no spoilers from us at Redbrick) are handled well and with the same wild passion of the original tale. The standout performance has to be Gemma Griffiths as Nelly Dean: the sensible, compassionate housekeeper who oversees this tangled love affair. Griffiths’ performance is brilliant; she delivers her lines with clear emotion and her ability to navigate the complexity of their story while maintaining the steady kindness of this character is a delight to watch. She will go far.

This is a good production to kick-start two weeks of performances which will showcase the creative talent of young people across the city

Overall, it is clear that this cast have worked hard on a very challenging production of Wuthering Heights. This is a good production to kick-start two weeks of performances which will showcase the creative talent of young people across the city, and once again show how vital young theatre companies like the Rep are, for giving children a place to express themselves, explore creatively, and test their talents.