Wuthering Heights – National Theatre

Picture: Steve Tanner

Wuthering Heights continues at the National Theatre (Lyttelton Theatre), London until 19 March 2022 and then tours until 4 June 2022.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Like many people with impeccable taste in music, my first exposure to Wuthering Heights was not the classic Emily Brontë novel, but Kate Bush’s 1978 debut single. Of course, if your medium doesn’t allow you 107,945 words to relate your tale of quasi-gothic romance, music is an effective emotional shortcut to the soul. Is all theatre better when musical? Probably, yes.

This new adaptation by Emma Rice – who also directs – is described as a ‘musical play’, as opposed to a ‘musical’ proper. This usually indicates a piece of straight theatre with some underscoring and perhaps a few non-plot-progressing songs, but this Wuthering Heights is not so reserved. There are character songs, torch songs, ensemble dance numbers, and even the Yorkshire Moors themselves (embodied by a commanding and beautifully voiced Nandi Bhebhe) get an oft-reprised chorus. This show is unafraid to use the full power of music to translate Brontë’s masterpiece to the stage.

In fact – like many National Theatre productions – it is happy to clutch for every tool in the theatrical toolbox to draw the audience in. The most immediately striking elements of the show’s wily, windy moors opening scene are the sound and light design, both making full use of the Lyttelton Theatre’s formidable tech rig. As the story unfolds, props, puppets and projections are brought in to dazzle and delight. The cast flag up the story as being on the complicated side early on, but do so not at all patronisingly. After all, this is a tale told across many decades, featuring generations of characters with frustratingly similar names. Even the biggest fan would not pretend that Wuthering Heights is a children’s book.

Speaking of the characters, Rice’s ultimate weapon in her directorial arsenal is one of the most uniformly brilliant ensemble casts I have had the pleasure to see on stage. Actors will sit at the side of the stage until required, becoming a part of the Yorkshire Moors that narrate the story. Actors play multiple roles in the story, but this device is much less confusing than it can be in other productions. Rice casts the same performer to play parent and child, and this is a great memory aid when getting your head around the complex genealogical puzzle that is Brontë’s story.

Besides Bhebhe as The Moors, the only performers to stick to just one role throughout are Ash Hunter as Heathcliff and Lucy McCormick as Catherine. Heathcliff is a monster, of course, but when Hunter reverts to an innocent youth and brings such heart-breaking realism to the trauma and racism that shaped him, we fully believe in both the bond he forms with Catherine and the magnetism that attracts Isabella. Hunter’s physicality in apparently ageing decades over the course of the story is a remarkable display of talent, no doubt perfected during his time spent playing the title role in Hamilton. Heathcliff is an iconic character in literature, and Hunter’s striking performance more than lives up to the legend.

McCormick is a brilliant choice for Catherine Earnshaw. A fixture – or rather: highlight – of the performance art scene for some years now, McCormick brings an exhilarating, unpredictable electricity to the doomed romantic. She is not of this world, and with fearlessness she makes the entire stage, the entire room, the entire story, about her. However, she does not upstage or overshadow the other performers – in fact she is comedically generous and sensitive in her interactions. She sets the tone when onstage, and the rest of the cast switch gears to walk beside her in the bizarre world of Catherine.

Just as remarkable as her portrayal of her character’s life, is her Act II performance of Catherine after death. McCormick becomes a mute ghost haunting the proceedings, looming large over every decision the characters make. She contorts herself into knots on the boards and adds tension and context to every scene without speaking a word. The performance is as delicate and tense to watch as a tightrope act, and McCormick pulls it off like few others could.

So far, so dark and haunted, but Rice’s production sprinkles on a surprising amount of humour and light-hearted slapstick. Honestly, one of the bravest decisions of theatre I have recently seen is Katy Owen’s clownish, mugging, more-Frank-Spencer-than-Frank-Spencer silliness slapped bang in the middle of the story’s bleak final act. The shifts in tone could be so easy to get wrong and detract from the power of the piece as a whole, but Rice’s choices pay dividends here, not least thanks to Owen’s irresistible performance. Earlier in the show, she fully inhabits another scene-stealing comic monster: Isabella Linton – the most immature and precocious young lady you can’t help but love.

Elsewhere in the cast, Witney White excels as Frances Earnshaw and Young Cathy. She brings light and hope to the dark tone of the piece. Her final scenes with Tama Phethean’s Hareton Earnshaw are truly heart-warming. Phethean also plays the troubled Hindley Earnshaw, demonstrating tremendous range of emotion and characterisation over the course of the evening.

The delightful Craig Johnson is another source of light in the piece as the kindly Mr Earnshaw and Dr Kenneth, while Sam Archer is frequently hilarious as the ineffectual (at least compared to Heathcliff) Lockwood and Edgar Linton. The entire ensemble works together well when performing Etta Murfitt’s energetic and carefully considered choreography. The Brechtian staging allows us glimpses of the wings so even the hard-working stage managers become a key part of the performance – and rightfully receive much applause when they take a bow at the end.

Ian Ross’ score for this ‘musical play’ consists of acoustic or electric guitar-led underscoring of the vast majority of scenes, and a number of beautiful, modal songs – some folk inspired, others unapologetically punk rock. Wuthering Heights is nothing if not emotional, and though those emotions sometimes may be constrained and understated due to the social conventions of the time, they are still profoundly human and no less deeply felt. With power and clever composition, the music reflects this. McCormick’s songs in particular are as raw and engaging as anything you will find on a London stage.

Like with all adaptations, comparisons with the source material can get in the way of fully appreciating the sheer achievement of what has been put on stage. As a piece of theatre, Rice’s twisted vision of the Yorkshire Moors is transportive and engrossing for the entire three-hour running time. In this Wuthering Heights love is dangerous and warmth is fleeting. You may be glad to not live there but the world this show creates will stick with you long after the final bows.

Ian Bowkett