One more performance! Don’t miss it!
This is an outstanding piece of adult theater. Outstanding. That the brave New Victory Theater, developed for children (of all ages) provides venue should not deter you from experiencing an exceptionally produced and directed, robustly acted, freshly interpreted telling of Wuthering Heights.
You may be wary of the term “freshly interpreted.” I don’t blame you. In my opinion, none of the subsequent film or television versions hold a candle to the 1939 Samuel Goldwyn production starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. I am a card carrying purist. Like Mr. Sondheim, I don’t like things mucked with when the original is iconic. In fact, I don’t like things mucked with…except by their original authors. When I saw this was to be played in modern dress, my stomach sank. I still disagree with the costuming, but was pointedly wrong to presume about the piece.
Wuthering Heights, Restless Souls is both harsher than the film and faithful to the heart and guts of Emily Bronte’s story. Our passionate Cathy is portrayed as an unappeasable purveyor of tragedy. Her connection to Heathcliff is physical, visceral and out of control, perhaps mad. It has her audibly and visually enthralled even while protesting otherwise. Healthcliff’s primal spirit is embodied as a literal force of nature, early on unleashing a storm such as Prospero* was able to conjure, communing with and understanding earth and the elements. It’s gothic, not airy-fairy. Mystical allusions are in place long before the epilogue. The star crossed lovers fight from the day. Dirty, barefoot Heathcliff, rescued from the streets, is brought home by their father to Cathy and her sullen, prideful brother Hindley. And by fight, I mean wrestle, tear at one another, roll on the floor, grab and hit. It’s exuberantly powerful. The actors must be black and blue. Heathcliff draws Cathy into his world with crude magnetism. Their recognition is palpable.
Nelly, nanny/cook/servant, leads us through this particular recounting with exposition written into dialogue. Because she’s a part of the tale, acting and reacting, information never stops momentum or dissipates emotional involvement. It’s a rare trick and a great credit to writer, Jeroen Olyslaegers and translator Rina Vergano. The rich collaboration has created characters who express, not those who suggest which liberates repressed archetypes. Introducing signals of lust and embracing the other-worldly aspect of the story throughout adds to its formidable hold. Raw violence is never less than resonant. At two hours without an intermission, five or ten minutes might be cut. I was completely engaged.
The Dutch ensemble is extremely talented and mostly as energetic as the language. After one gets over the hurdle of unfamiliar appearances, sheer acting heft takes over: Cathy is solidly built with sandy cropped hair and Heathcliff a wirey blonde. That Hindley is burly and bearded takes a little less acclimating. The others are visually as expected.
Alejandra Theus (Cathy) gives a virtuoso performance. As an imperious child undergoing self discovery, she’s hell bent and astonished. Enduring the agony of a woman unable to let go, the actress is ferocious and imploring. Despite sometimes helplessly kinetic manifestations of Cathy’s anguish, Theus is also without a trace of falseness. We’re privy to unspoken feelings and the consequences of her character’s vivid imagination.
Joris Smit (Heathcliff) is a fireball of focused energy, awareness, and seemingly abandoned physicality. Every expression and gesture counts. As credible as a rough-cut urchin who finds his destiny (in Cathy) as he is a pitiless man of the world, Smit accurately shows us evolution, not catharsis. Heathcliff is never innocent. The actor’s tormented wail (both silent and released) is as fundamental and genuine as that of Stanley Kowalski.** He is masterful.
Fabian Jansen’s Hindley is despicable from the word go. The actor persuasively creates a mean, repugnant, and at last despairing character whose self-secured misery evokes resistant compassion.
An Hackselmans’s Nelly is authentic and grounded. The actress manages to carry history along never losing the attitude of her own role. Daan van Dijsseldonk (Edgar) and Roos Van Vlaenderen (Isa) are fine in less charismatic roles. Van Vlaenderen’s Isa is compellingly shameless.
Director Floor Huygen has given us a vigorous, unflinching production. She utilizes the stage fully and well placing characters behind a translucent curtain where they become listening shadows, or lingering downstage from ongoing dialogue revealing simultaneous dramatic toll. Her fights seem unbridled free-for-alls. That she manages to tinge them with sexual innuendo shows real craft. Use of props is especially effective. A song, seemingly meant to soften the ending is, to me, a cop out.
Set Designer (& Stage manager) Michiel Van Cauwelaert has set the story on broad, rough wooden platforms with minimal furniture, signs of the woods and a hand-pulled curtain. The concept is effective and sufficient. All eyes are on the players. Storms are gorgeous.
Sound Designers Florentijn Boddendijk and Remco De Jong have done a terrific job with forest noises and eruptive weather. I only wish their music of the spheres contained less electronic influence.
Costume Designer Marike Kamphuis represented each personality in appropriate contemporary clothing.
*Shakespeare’s The Tempest
** Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire
Wuthering Heights, Restless Souls
By Theater Artemis
Co-produced by Theater Antigone
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street
646-223-3010 or www.newvictory.org
ONE MORE PERFORMANCE- Sunday January 29 3:00 pm
