Wise Children’s “Wuthering Heights”: Problems of Sympathy with Abuse and Accents

On October 29th, Professor Christopher GoGwilt’s grad class (Modernists/Victorians) went to see Emma Rice’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. (Rice’s adaptation has received glowing reviews, including this one from the New York Times.)

Rice’s “Wuthering Heights” follows the plot line of Brontë’s novel, paying particular attention to the dynamics of race and class that loom in the original. The story centers on the characters of Catherine Earnshaw (played by Leah Brotherhead) and Heathcliff (played by Liam Tamne). Years after Heathcliff (an orphan taken in by Catherine’s father) is betrayed by Catherine (who, despite being madly, mutually, romantically obssessed with him, refuses to marry him), he returns to exact revenge on everyone who abused him as a child.  

Rice’s adaptive choices highlighted different questions for each of the Fordham student reviewers who saw the production in October. Two main themes emerged from their responses, though. Firstly, which characters do we sympathize with in this production (and why)? And secondly, was the decision to make Heathcliff “Indian” a constructive one?

Several student reviewers highlight the same problem: they found it difficult to like Heathcliff and Catherine. Alana Murphy writes that Rice’s adaptation “creates a Catherine and a Heathcliff who are, on the whole, incredibly unlikeable… Whereas Brontë has plenty of paper space to use narrators with different degrees of reliability and chooses to leave some things ambiguous, the time constraints of the stage force the production to make choices. It decides for us whether or not Catherine and Heathcliff are sympathetic, and the answer is (at least from my perspective) a resounding no.”

Instead of becoming wrapped up in sympathy for the two “main” characters, Heathcliff and Catherine, student reviewers point to compelling performances from characters who suffered at Heathcliff and Catherine’s hands. Siobhan Greene highlights how Katy Owen’s performance of Isabella (Heathcliff’s fragile wife) and young Linton Heathcliff (her son) created both comedic relief and deeper pathos: “On the surface, Owen injected some energizing laughter into a long play. If you look deeper, the youth she brought to both roles further shows the cruelty of Catherine and Heathcliff.” 

Sarah Holsberg remarks that Tama Phethan’s performance of Hareton Earnshaw (and of Hareton’s abusive father, Hindley Earnshaw) also aligned the audience’s sympathies against Heathcliff. “One factor that affects Phethan’s portrayal of Hareton is the fact that he is double cast as Hareton’s father Hindley Earnshaw. In order to differentiate between the two characters, Hareton needed to be as opposed to his father as possible. This opposition makes Heathcliff’s abuse of Hareton even more despicable, since Heathcliff claims to be punishing Hareton for the sins of his father… It was deeply moving to see a character so neglected despite his best efforts to connection find ultimate happiness in his marriage to Catherine [the younger], as well as being victorious against his abusers. Hopefully the show’s portrayal of Hareton inspires viewers to advocate for children in similar circumstances, and children will not feel so alienated and rejected when asking for help.”

Alana also pointed to the emotional weight of Sam Archer’s performance as Edgar Linton. “As Catherine’s crazed behavior wears down Edgar’s hopeful outlook on their marriage, the cheerful costuming is stripped away. Archer shows us something genuine about Edgar’s love for Catherine by playing him as feeling helpless and confused, and yet ever faithful to caring for her and their daughter. The most heart-wrenching moment in the production is when Edgar, dying and slumped over in a chair, calls out for his daughter who is trapped at the Heights by Heathcliff.”

Alana also clarifies that “likeability is not the be-all and end-all of good theater or literature.” She writes, “I don’t want my review to boil down to ‘I didn’t like Catherine and Healthcliff, but I liked Edgar.’ Instead, I hope to highlight how the musical deals with the problem of sympathy in three hours that Brontë’s novel weaves over three hundred pages. Despite the musical’s focus on Catherine and Heathcliff’s connection, their unlikability might actually reveal something Brontë might want us to take away from the novel—this isn’t a love story. Archer’s sincere, sympathetic portrayal contrasts with Brotherhead and Tamne’s toxic passion and fury to show us it’s a lot more complicated than that.” 

Our student reviewers raise another important question, as well: what does the choice to make Heathcliff recognizably Indian do for the production, and is it worth it?

Alana notes that Tamne’s Indian accent made it even harder to sympathize with Heathcliff. “Liam Tamne’s choice of a stereotypical Indian accent for Heathcliff takes the audience member out of the story and leaves you questioning whether the performance is appropriate instead of paying attention to whether the abuse the character endures explains his callousness.”

Hardik Yadav finds precedent for the choice in the text of the novel: “Heathcliff, supposed to be “a gift of God” (or from the devil, for “it’s as dark almost as if”; 30) in the novel, is rendered an Indian in this English production. [Do not cue the tabla, please.] There is a precedent in the source for Indianizing Heathcliff (or implying it). Emily Brontë’s characters allude to it early on: he may be a “a little Lascar” (43): he may even have an Indian queen for a mother (49). Who knows ... as Catherine says, resuming her interest in his handsomeness: “You’re fit for a prince in disguise” (49).”

And yet Hardik also found that this choice to make Heathcliff “Indian” reduced Heathcliff’s ability to perform the many kinds of otherness he represents in Brontë’s novel. He points to John Bugg’s argument that the instability of Heathcliff’s ambiguous otherness is crucial to the interpretive work that the novel demands.

 “Yet here we are: with a racially ambiguous actor (Liam Tamne)—points there! and only there—randomly picking and dropping a stereotypical thick Indian accent, perhaps when suspecting it near-impossible that the background tabla score won’t clue us in on his Heathcliff’s Indianness… What Tamne is doing is significant: we cannot ignore Heathcliff’s marked difference. But to this Indian, this presentation of the Indian-race-take feels like eating at an Indian restaurant outside India; not the times when what I am served turns out good; but most other times when what I am served is a reminder, reminder that it’s not for me… and I am brought back to craving as I had begun (– so what if I’ll probably eat up whatever is served?).”

Hardik argues that by making Heathcliff Indian, the production also implicitly makes Indianness a marker of otherness—a step which does not work for him. “In Brontë’s creation, Heathcliff is yours as is mine, can be mine. I like him in how novelist Caleb Crain receives him: “the brutality of Heathcliff is far from lessening Catherine’s attraction; on the contrary, the pain that Heathcliff lives in is seductive; it renders him more vivid than anyone polite and respectable could be.” Catherine’s prince-in-disguise lives in text as though seductively inviting the reader into feeling his pain. Heathcliff on stage last Saturday seemed performed, seemed performed for the viewer to sense his otherness, his Indianness; otherness cannot be marked with Indianness, not for me; handsome as Tamne is, his Heathcliff is not for me.”  

Professor Chris GoGwilt responded to “Wuthering Heights” more poetically, further illustrating how wide the range of personal experiences of a single performance can be.

Wise Children’s “Wuthering Heights” will be on tour in the United States until March.