As a child growing up in Britain, Emma Rice would go on family walks, stumbling over the moors in the cold and rainy weather to a place called Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse near Haworth, West Yorkshire, England, which is said to have been the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights.
“Which of course, I hated as a child!” Rice exclaimed.
Emma Rice would complain to her mother about taking these walks to Top Withens, but her mother would tell the young Emma that one day she’d love Wuthering Heights.
“And she was right,” acknowledged Emma Rice, although her relationship with Wuthering Heights as gone through phases.
“All us Brits are brought up on Wuthering Heights,” she laughed.
“When I was a teenager I loved its sort of Gothic romanticism. You know, I was obsessed with death, scared of death, and had had a bereavement, so that idea that ghosts could talk to the living with this sort of impossible passion, felt very romantic as a teenager. But I have to say, I forgot the book for many years after that.”
It was 2016 when Emma Rice returned to the novel, prompted by significant events happening in the world. Migrants were gathering in Calais, France, trying to make their way to England to start a new life. The news highlighted the plight of unaccompanied migrant children and the debate on how many the UK should accept. As Emma Rice watched this unfolding crisis a rage began to swell inside her.
Rice began to question how we could ever expect there to not be a generation of people filled with rage and damage if we don’t take care of the most vulnerable people on the planet?
“But I also thought, wait a minute, wasn’t Heathcliff an unaccompanied child migrant? So I pulled my book off the shelf, and there he was at the Liverpool docks: a child of colour. Left at the docks.”
And in that moment Emma Rice realised she wanted to tell this story of Wuthering Heights in a stage adaptation.
“It’s not a romance. It’s a revenge tragedy! And I think that those were the big things for me. I thought, this is about revenge.”
In adapting Wuthering Heights for the stage, as well as directing this theatrical work, Emma Rice considered how to put some context around Heathcliff’s actions, but also wanted to include some genuine hope in what she admits is a pretty bleak story.
The result is a critically acclaimed work which will make its Australian debut at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer theatre in January 2025.
“I love it! You’ve got the moors. You’ve got desperate passion. You’ve got funny characters. It’s got everything you could possibly want!”
Adapting the novel for the stage took about five years – interrupted by COVID. However, the enforced break caused Emma Rice to redesign the show.
Initially, her set design for Wuthering Heights was a very dark, heavy and black set. But during the COVID period of being stuck at home, Emma Rice discovered a surge of life and hope that prompted her to redesign the set. Ultimately, the show benefited.
Despite growing up reading Wuthering Heights, Emma Rice now looks at the story very differently. As a grown woman, she sees the damage being done and the abuse. But she also looks at Catherine very differently, identifying the behavioural problems and mental health issues this character displays.
“And, in fact, the thing that I think amazes me is how Emily Bronte had obviously seen these characters. And in my head, it’s because they were at this vicarage that everybody came to their door: the mad, the sad, the desperate, the lost, because the depictions of alcoholism, of mental health, issues of repression, of rage, of love, are phenomenal when you think about how sheltered her life was. But I think that’s what I’ve brought to (the show). It is an understanding of the damage that these characters are bringing.”
Although there are some challenging issues in the story, Emma Rice explains there is also a lot of warmth and humour. Reading Wuthering Heights again as adult, Emma Rice found herself laughing out loud and realised the characters are also quite hilarious.
The story of Wuthering Heights is set almost entirely outdoors. Emma Rice decided to have the moors themselves act as the narrator in the shape of a Greek chorus. The moors are a brutal place and Rice wanted to ensure this was depicted on stage. The result is a theatrical work that she describes as being exuberant, flamboyant and edgy.
Usually considered a classical work of literature, Wuthering Heights remains relevant to today’s world.
“It’s super relevant. I mean, I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last director to make Heathcliff a character of color, because he is. It’s how he’s described throughout the book. And to see how he is othered from the moment that he appears, and to see the effect that that has. He’s no passive victim. He vows revenge, and he takes it.”
Emma Rice also regards Wuthering Heights as feminist literature.
“If you look at Catherine through the lens of women’s mental health, you know this is a toxic relationship. It is absolutely fascinating, and so relevant, and watching her try and navigate her options as a woman at that time.”
Audiences to Wuthering Heights have been quite a mix of those already familiar with the story and those for whom the story is new. It’s also a very accessible production for students studying the novel.
“They know that it’s going to be accessible, that they’re going to understand it, that it will be exciting. I mean, we got a punk rock number at the middle of it … sometimes it’s like a rock concert in there, it’s so exciting! I do think the one thing that me and my team and my actors have done is taken this text, which could feel a bit sticky and overwhelming, and really said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to tell you this story.’ It’s so accessible in a genuine sense.”
Perhaps the greatest accolades have come from the Bronte Society who loved this stage adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which remains true to the original Emily Bronte text, with some additional dialogue.
“I love Emily Bronte’s text … The great thing about adapting shows books for theatre is you have to cut 98%. The minute you don’t like something, or don’t understand it, you cut it, because you’re cutting so much, anyway. So you’re left with the absolute gems, the brilliant, shining, glittering text. And, as I say, the funny text, the detailed text. It’s it’s been an absolute joy.”
Rice added some of her own text for the moors, writing a collection of poetry that glues the piece together.
“But apart from that, it’s all eminent Miss Bronte’s phenomenal words.”
Managing to win over students and the Bronte Society, Emma Rice can confidently say this show brings in everyone.
Emma Rice ultimately hopes audiences will leave Wuthering Heights having had a good time, but she also wants them to go away with a sense of hope. The hope that good people can win through, that if you you persist and listen, and help and learn that people can make change.
“You know there are delicious and, sort of, unlikable characters that you you grow really fond of. So I think it’s a lesson in empathy.”
Wuthering Heights is best suited for ages 12 and up, but Emma Rice describes it as a fun show.
“It’s like a soap opera. Everything happens. Everybody dies, everybody. And there’s hope. And it’s got absolutely everything. Anybody who’s old enough to enjoy a big rollicking soap opera mess of a show will love it!”
Emma Rice’s critically acclaimed production of Wuthering Heights will play an exclusive and limited season in Sydney in 2025. A co-production with Wise Children, the National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and York Theatre Royal, this adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic will open at the Ros Packer Theatre from January 31, 2025, for a limited 3 week season.
TICKETS ON SALE NOW www.wutheringheightsaustralia.com
