WUTHERING HEIGHTS at the Crossrail Place Roof Garden

★★★★

“almost Shakespearian at times in the rhythm of the language yet peppered with modern profanities and anachronisms”

One always admires companies who tackle outdoor shows in the UK. They are always risky undertakings, what Oscar Wilde would describe as a ‘triumph of hope over experience’. The evocatively titled Midnight Circle Productions don’t shy away from the challenge as they take their devised adaptation of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” around some of England’s most beautiful castles, manor houses and gardens.

As part of the tour, they have shored up in the West India Docks for two nights at the Crossrail Place Roof Garden in Canary Wharf. A haven of exotic plants and hidden pathways that lead you to the small amphitheatre that, in partnership with The Space Theatre, offers free events throughout the summer months. Asian bamboos to the left, ferns from the Americas to the right, the walkway follows the Meridian line, but it never quite feels like you have escaped the city. An artificial sheen hangs in the air, matched by the rather unatmospheric theatre space you eventually stumble upon. Planes, trains and automobiles provide much of the soundtrack while a featureless wall provides the backdrop.

The cast rise to the challenge and, although not always projecting as strongly as is necessary, they hold our attention throughout with their retelling of the Brontë classic. Told with wonderful clarity and constancy, it stamps its own individuality by allowing the characterisation to fill the spaces in the framework of the text. Director Nicholas Benjamin’s semi-improvised approach lets everyone take a writing credit. The result could be chaotic but here the narrative is a mix of soap opera and classical prose; almost Shakespearian at times in the rhythm of the language yet peppered with modern profanities and anachronisms. The fluctuating tempo of the staging is led by offstage percussion and sporadic bouts of music that tentatively wander into the playing space. An underused squeezebox shyly underscores while an under amplified guitar accompanies the folksy song interludes.

The story unfolds in flashback as Nelly (Jacqueline Johnson) relates it to Lockwood (Nicholas Benjamin), the new tenant to gruff, eccentric Heathcliff – the landlord of the remote Wuthering Heights. Transported back thirty years, Lockwood learns the backstory to the two families (the Earnshaws and the Lintons) and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws’ adopted son, Heathcliff. While the production doesn’t quite capture the Romanticism and the Gothic heart of the novel, it certainly draws attention to the cruelty, both mental and physical and the challenging issue of abuse, class and morality. Renny Mendoza’s Heathcliff is a rather unremitting thug, who sulks and shouts his way to his pitiless end, though a charismatic presence, nonetheless. Oscar Mackie’s Hindley Earnshaw, despite being the archetypal bully, fares better in the sympathy stakes. Less a drunkard, Mackie plays the alcoholic with a modern sensitivity. A similar modernism is given to Catherine Earnshaw (Niamh Handley-Vaughan) and Isabella Linton (Nadia Lamin). Both Handley-Vaughan and Lamin keep victimhood at bay with their strong portrayals of the tragic women.

The strengths of this show, however, are often lost in the surroundings. Subtle sound effects (of ghosts or of a wrenching cry) created by the company members themselves had to compete with layers of traffic and streams of curious, often vocal, onlookers. We are more than tempted to follow the play to its next location to feel the full impact of the performance – one full of respect for the original, but not afraid to give it a bit of a shake.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

★★★★

Crossrail Place Roof Garden

WUTHERING HEIGHTS at the Crossrail Place Roof Garden

★★★★

“almost Shakespearian at times in the rhythm of the language yet peppered with modern profanities and anachronisms”