Wuthering Heights Programme

National Tour Partner

Artistic Director David Nixon

Autumn 2009

Photo: HANSON

Wuthering Heights

Choreographer, Director & Costumer Designer: David Nixon Composer: Claude-Michel Schönberg Set Designer Ali Allen: Lighting Designer: David Grill Orchestrator: William David Brohn Dramatic Associate: Patricia Doyle Additional Orchestration: John Longstaff Thank you to Charlotte Talbot for her assistance in the restaging of this revival of Wuthering Heights Photo: Merlin Hendy

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Wuthering Heights The Story Prologue

ACT II

A storm on the moors. Haunted by thoughts of Cathy, Heathcliff rages through the night. The storm dies and a memory returns; Cathy and Heathcliff in their youth, a time of innocent and trusting love.

It is Cathy and Edgar’s wedding day and an unexpected guest arrives. Heathcliff has returned – richly dressed and genteel. As Cathy and Heathcliff are left alone, the rest of the world ceases to exist – they are back on the moors again. As Edgar returns Cathy slips from Heathcliff’s grasp.

ACT I

At Wuthering Heights, Hindley is drinking heavily and gambling away huge sums of money. Heathcliff gives money to Hindley, allowing him to fall deeper into debt. As Hindley becomes more desperate he signs Heathcliff’s promissory note, losing not only the game, but Wuthering Heights as well.

A memory takes form in the mists, the kitchen at Wuthering Heights where two children play. Cathy and Hindley wait for their father and rush to him in search of presents. They find nothing but a ragged child, hidden beneath his cloak. They both regard the new addition to the family – Cathy with fascination, but Hindley with dismay. As they grow older Cathy and Heathcliff spend all of their time together on the desolate moors; amid the untamed brutality of the landscape there is an elemental bond between them. When his father dies, Hindley becomes master of Wuthering Heights and takes his revenge upon Heathcliff, delighting in his degradation and humiliation. It is only with Cathy, on the moors, that Heathcliff can find happiness. On the moor they discover Thrushcross Grange, the Linton’s home and an oasis of tamed tranquillity in such a desolate landscape. A party is taking place and Heathcliff and Cathy make fun of Edgar and Isabella Linton. They are discovered, but as they run away Cathy trips. Edgar is enchanted and Heathcliff is forgotten. Cathy convalesces at Thrushcross Grange. Edgar falls in love with her and she is captivated by his refinement. Heathcliff remains alone with only thoughts of Cathy and questions her long absence. She leaves for home, sorrier to leave the riches and luxury of Thrushcross Grange than she is to leave Edgar. On her return to Wuthering Heights she regards its gloomy interior with dismay, but Heathcliff steps out and she greets him, laughing. However, with Edgar at Cathy’s side, Heathcliff cannot conceal his jealousy and after a struggle with Hindley he runs from the house. Cathy tries to follow him, but he has gone and she has chosen her destiny.

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Photo: HANSON

Isabella arrives at Wuthering Heights to return Heathcliff’s riding crop. The charm he displays grows more aggressive, but when Isabella hesitates Heathcliff tells her to leave. Rather than return to the loneliness of her life at Thrushcross Grange, Isabella submits to him. Cathy sits in the garden at Thrushcross Grange and sees Heathcliff and Isabella enter the grounds. She is jealous when Heathcliff kisses Isabella and confronts him. Heathcliff angrily accuses her of betraying their love, making it clear that he will not give up Isabella and means to have revenge. Left alone, Cathy is drawn, irresistibly, back to the moors. In the gathering storm she comes face-to-face with Heathcliff. The anger is gone, replaced by love. Discovered by Isabella, Cathy races from the scene and Heathcliff turns the full violence of his rage on Isabella. The night spent on the moors leaves Cathy gravely ill. A griefstricken Edgar finally shows all the love and passion previously missing from his life. He leaves to get the doctor and Heathcliff climbs through a window. He gathers her up in his arms and they embrace one another fiercely. As Edgar returns Cathy collapses.

EPILOGUE Heathcliff is back on the moor. An old man, he is desperate to embrace death and be reunited with Cathy. He has lived a lifetime without her. Finally his tired heart gives way and he falls to his knees with his head to the heavens. As snow begins to fall the youthful lovers return. The anger of the past is buried as, liberated from anger and betrayal, they are reunited in their innocence and love.

Photo: Merlin Hendy

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Discovering Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights

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In 1820 the Revd. Patrick Brontë was appointed Perpetual Curate of Haworth and arrived in the village with his Cornishborn wife, Maria, and their six small children: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. Although Haworth itself was a bleak-looking industrial town in the Brontës’ time, the landscape which most people associate with the Brontës, and Emily in particular, is the haunting windswept moorland which extends for mile after mile beyond Haworth Parsonage.

Despite her lack of formal education, Emily did obtain a post as teacher at Miss Patchett’s School at Law Hill, Halifax, in 1838. This was to be her first and last attempt at paid employment, and by March 1839 Emily was back at Haworth. In 1842 Emily and Charlotte spent a year studying in Brussels, returning home due to their aunt’s death later in the year. Emily remained at the Parsonage to act as housekeeper and continued to write both prose and poetry.

Mrs Brontë died within eighteen months of the family’s arrival at Haworth, and her sister Elizabeth Branwell came from Penzance to look after the family. In 1824, when Emily was only five, she was sent with her older sisters to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. In the following spring, however, the two eldest girls, Maria and Elizabeth, contracted tuberculosis at school. They were sent home where they died within a few weeks of each other. For the next few years the four surviving children remained together at Haworth. Tabby Aykroyd, the local woman who served the Brontës faithfully for many years, would entertain the children with dark tales of the Yorkshire moors on winter evenings around the warm kitchen fire. The children developed a rich imaginary world, chronicled in tiny books. In fact books of all kinds played an important role in the Brontës’ lives and they were all profoundly influenced by the works of Shakespeare, Scott and Byron.

In 1846 the sisters published an edition of their poems under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Only two copies of the book were sold, but in October 1847 Charlotte’s Jane Eyre appeared to instant acclaim. The London publisher, Thomas Cautley Newby had already accepted Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey, on terms which Charlotte described as ‘somewhat impoverishing to the two authors’. The two novels appeared in December 1847. Many of the early critics of Wuthering Heights were forced to acknowledge the novel’s power while comparing it unfavourably with Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë’s only novel. It is believed that she may have begun work on a second, which was never completed. Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis on 19th December 1848 at the age of 30.

A book like no other Where to start? When I was 13, seeing the play on television, starring, unbelievably, Richard Todd as Heathcliff (what I wouldn’t give to see that again!) and the wonderful, passionate actress Yvonne Mitchell, as Catherine. Like Catherine she too died young. I had never read the book and the next Saturday off I went to Woollies with my saved up pocket money to buy a copy, price 3s 6d, about 17p in today’s money. Sadly I lost this copy over the years, but never the first impression it left on me. Of course I fell in love with Heathcliff and as I grew up went looking for a Heathcliff of my own, long before we knew that was a very silly thing to do which would only end in tears if you found him. As the years went by I discovered the other Brontë books; went to the Parsonage and on to the moors many times; as a young actress played Catherine in repertory, directed by my husband; had a small role in one of the films (Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff) and adapted and directed it as a play. It is the one that goes with me to the Desert Island – never mind the Bible and Shakespeare. Then there is Laurence Olivier. But by the time I saw the film I knew Heathcliff was some kind of devil, certainly not portrayed in the Hollywood version. After all, Emily’s own sister Charlotte felt compelled to write a disclaimer for the second edition of the novel in 1850 as she felt on re-reading it that Heathcliff was too much of a savage, his revenge too sadistic and that her sister didn’t realise what she was writing. Well she did. She lived with her adored brother Branwell, who disappointed all his family,

Photo: Merlin Hendy

including his Parson father, and turned into a drug-taking drunkard, falling desperately and inconsolably in love so inappropriately with his employer’s wife. Emily didn’t survive him long, unlike Heathcliff who longs to die when his soul mate Catherine dies in childbirth. Emily knew all about drink, betrayal and deep depression from her own brother. And that he took drugs just under the Parsonage at the Black Bull public house. Charlotte felt that Heathcliff was “unredeemed” but Emily forgave him and asks us to as well. For somehow she gives us, in the full novel, the terrible revenge that Heathcliff wreaks finally becoming resolved as he comes nearer and nearer to Catherine and his own death, leaving the next generation to find the happiness he can only share in the grave with his Catherine. Of course both Catherine and Heathcliff behave dreadfully and selfishly but there is something above and beyond them that impels them, that moves them into another sphere, beyond human experience to something unearthly and elemental. And it is on the moors that they are most at one, free and unrestrained. There is no other book like this one; it fits no simple genre. Its author read Blackwood’s magazine and the Gothic romances of the time in particular The Bridegroom of Barna, and poetry by Lord Byron, “mad, bad and dangerous to know”, as indeed is Heathcliff. She certainly didn’t read Jane Austen as Charlotte did. She was an astonishing original, this book going beyond her own experience into worlds she could at the last only invent. And when she died so early we lost an imagination unparalleled in English literature. Patricia Doyle - Dramatic Associate

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Everlasting love

The music of Wuthering Heights As a composer of musicals I know how to tell a story with music, singers and lyrics; I know what kind of mood a melody can deliver and how to write a song, but I never thought of writing a ballet – this was unknown territory for me. The idea of turning Wuthering Heights into a ballet was initially developed with my friend Derek Deane and hearing of NBT’s reputation for successful narrative-led productions, I contacted the Company’s Artistic Director, David Nixon. I soon found myself deeply involved in the challenge of creating my first ballet score. Where do you start? How do you capture the haunting beauty of the Yorkshire Moors and the sheer force of the wind that sweeps across them? This is where I began with my dear friend, orchestrator, William D.Brohn; not using any special sound effects, just notes of music. From that point on, the music came very quickly, almost violently, the story flooding out. I completed the work in nine months, working eight hours a day, in a peculiarly sunny winter in the south of France. Inspiration was there, my fingers sometimes running on the keyboard much faster than my brain. It felt like the characters Heathcliff, Cathy, Edgar, Isabella, were talking to me. Images from the movie versions of Sir Laurence Olivier or Juliette Binoche ran through my mind, as I tried to be true to Emily Brontë’s spirit.

After Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre it was a land of freedom, no borders imposed by the voices, ranges, change of keys, structure of the words. I’m not saying that it was any easier, just different. Not hiding behind singers, I am more exposed as a composer so I also had to improve my technique of writing. I was learning more about myself and was certainly not the same man by the time I reached the last bar of the score. That first meeting with David Nixon was certainly a pleasure. What a joy for a composer to work with a choreographer who is mad about music; humming the melodies on and on and not just counting the steps. In fact after watching the first production of the ballet many times during 2002-2003, David and I were convinced that a sequence dedicated to Heathcliff was missing in Act 1. So early in 2009 I had to return to the keyboard and compose a new section called “Waiting”. Indeed a creator’s life is only about “never being satisfied” and “never finishing!” Now we hand over this work to you - it is yours. By joining us here in the theatre today I believe that there are some sparkles of Heathcliff and Cathy in your soul - because everybody’s dream is to find everlasting love. Claude-Michel Schönberg

Production Credits: Wuthering Heights Original Production Manager: Tim Anger Revival Production Manager: Andy Waddington Scenic Construction: Bryan Tweddle, Gary Fox, Jon Moorhouse and Peter Deacon Scenic Décor: Ali Allen, Cathy Stewart, Dave Gillan, Gill Lightfoot and Owen Moore CAD Draughtsman: Steve Wilkins Wardrobe Supervisor: Kim Brassley Assisted by: Beth Stocks, Laura O’Connor, Mikhaila Pye, Heather Burtt and Carley Marsh 16

Ladies Costumes realised by: Julie Anderson Assisted by: Sarah Anderson Heathcliff Characters by: Phil Reynolds Tailoring by: Barry Thewlis and Laura O’Connor Millinery by: Jane Smith Dyeing by: Chris Duffelen Wigs and Makeup Supervisor: Gavin Render Assisted by: Georgina Gabbie Wigs made by: Marian Wilson Pointe Shoes by: Freed of London

Creative Team DAVID NIXON Choreographer, Director and Costume Designer See page 4

Patricia Doyle Dramatic Associate

Claude-Michel SchÖnberg Composer Born in 1944 of Hungarian parents, Claude-Michel Schönberg began his career as a singer, writer and producer of pop songs. In collaboration with Alain Boublil he is the book co-writer and the composer of La Revolution Francaise, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Martin Guerre and Pirate Queen. In 2008 his new musical Marguerite in collaboration with Alain Boublil and Michel Legrand opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. He has supervised overseas productions and co-produced several international cast albums of his shows. In 2002 his first ballet score Wuthering Heights was created for Northern Ballet Theatre.

William David Brohn Orchestrator With the orchestration of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s score for Wuthering Heights, William David Brohn returns to Yorkshire to continue his long association with the composer for whom he also orchestrated Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre. Brohn’s connection to dance music dates back to the 60s when he began as conductor for the Robert Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Royal Ballet’s tours of America during Sir Frederick Ashton’s tenure. When he took up the pen as orchestrator in the ensuing decades, it was for such choreographers as Agnes De Mille, Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, Anthony Dowell, and Sir Kenneth MacMillan.

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Besides being noted for his work at Stratford-upon-Avon, the West End, the Royal National Theatre and New York’s Broadway, Brohn is recognised as an arranger and composer for numerous artists including Placido Domingo, Marilyn Horne and for Joshua Bell with Bernstein’s West Side Story Suite for Violin and Orchestra on Sony Classical with the London Symphony Orchestra. He has recently worked as Orchestrator for the West End Hits Mary Poppins and Oliver.

Patricia has worked extensively with Northern Ballet Theatre, beginning as a drama consultant and acting coach on Christopher Gable’s Dracula, also working closely with him and Michael Pink on Giselle and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She then directed Northern Ballet Theatre’s Carmen and A Streetcar Named Desire, both choreographed by Didy Veldman. Her collaboration with David Nixon began on Wuthering Heights and Swan Lake and continued with Patricia co-directing and creating the scenarios with David for the Company’s new versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peter Pan. Patricia also co-wrote the scenario for David Nixon’s A Sleeping Beauty Tale, which was performed as part of NBT’s Spring/Summer tour in 2007. As well as co-directing Hamlet 2008 Patricia also prepared the scenario alongside David Nixon. As well as her work as a professional theatre director Patricia also teaches and lectures on British Theatre for American Universities. Born: Hertfordshire, England. Trained: RADA Previous Companies: As an Actress: Patricia has worked in many of the major repertory companies in Britain; at the Royal Court, the National Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is a founding member of the GeVa Theatre, Rochester, NY. Varied television, radio and film work. As a Director: Work includes: Martine, Salisbury Playhouse; Time and the Conways and Noises Off, Ohio, USA; Three Sisters, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights and Travesties, Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre; Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, Theatre, Chipping Norton; Blue Remembered Hills, A Clergyman’s Daughter, and Bloody Poetry with her own company Terra Firma. She has also worked with Central School of Ballet, the National Youth Theatre and has been involved in the training of students at major Drama Schools as well as working with young offenders for the Prince’s Trust. Patricia also directs courses at the Actors Centre in London and was Rehearsal Director for the children in the Hollywood film Anna and the King starring Jodie Foster. Personal Career Highlights: As an Actress: The world tour of Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives, Emma in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, Hester in Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, Sheila in Peter Nichol’s A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Jo in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, Pinocchio and Hedda Gabler. As a Director: Martine, Blue Remembered Hills, A Clergyman’s Daughter, Wuthering Heights, Three Sisters, Time and the Conways, A Doll’s House, Serious Money, Barnaby Rudge and productions with Northern Ballet Theatre. Personal: Was married to the director Donald MacKechnie with whom she had a long and fulfilling artistic career. Has a son, Angus MacKechnie, who is Producer of Platforms and Events at the National Theatre.

Ali Allen

David Grill

Set Designer

Lighting Designer

Born: Somerset, England. Trained/Educated: Studied Fine Art at Newcastle University. Previous work: Ali’s work has extended over a wide variety of areas including carnival, sculpture, pantomime, opera and outdoor theatre projects. Previous work includes Madame Butterfly and Dracula for Northern Ballet Theatre, Rumblefish, Bloodtide, Lord of the Flies, The Twits, Fungus the Bogeyman for Pilot Theatre, Kes and Brassed off for Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, Bollywood Jane for Leicester Haymarket, Once Upon a Quarry Hill for West Yorkshire Playhouse, Look back in Anger for Harrogate Theatre, Where’s Vietnam? for Red Ladder’s 40th anniversary at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Most recently she has been working with writer Trevor Griffiths on a touring set for Camel station, and is currently designing The Little Mermaid for Dundee Repertory theatre. Highlights: Winning Best Float for Trinidad Carnival, and more recently working with 30 people and Red Ladder Theatre Company on the show Where’s Vietnam?

David has designed lighting for Theatre, Dance, Opera, Television, Architectural Projects, and Industrials taking him from the Great Wall of China to the Great Stage of Radio City Music Hall. Mr. Grill was nominated for a Chicago Midwest Emmy Award for Milwaukee Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet, a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for the Opening Ceremonies of the Pan American Games Rio 2007 and received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lighting Direction for the Opening Ceremony Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Dance credits include: Works for the Milwaukee Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet Met, Houston Ballet, Ballet Austin, Ballet NY, Northern Ballet Theatre, Cincinnati Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Dayton Ballet, ABT 2, Dances Patrelle (Resident Designer), numerous Choreographers and the Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. Mr. Grill also lit the National Tour of Sweet Charity, Cinderellabration at the Walt Disney World® Resort Magic Kingdom® Park, served as the Associate Lighting Designer for the Tony, Dora and Oliver Award Winning Musical The Who’s Tommy, and provided Lighting Direction for The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. Television Credits include: The Last Comic Standing II – New York, Paralympic Winter Games 2002 Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the Republican National Convention 2008, Larry King Live, and The Women’s Sports Awards. He has also provided Lighting Direction for CNN’s Atlanta Studio, the National Memorial Day and July 4th. Concerts and the Superbowl XXXII - XXXIII - XXXV – XL – XLI – XLII – XLIII Half-time Shows. Architectural projects include the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Museum, Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Cauldron Park and the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Florida Fossils. His extensive Corporate Theater credits include Estée Lauder, Pfizer, Georgetown University, Avon, ITT, MassMutual, Dow Jones, and Verizon. Mr. Grill has been featured in numerous publications including Lighting Dimensions and TCI and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and Co-Chairman of the Design/Technology Department at Purchase College, State University of New York.

JOHN LONGSTAFF Additional Orchestration Born: Lancashire, England. Education: Girton College, Cambridge; Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Companies/Organisations: Kiel Opera House, Germany (conductor and rehearsal pianist); Northern Ballet Theatre (conductor and rehearsal pianist); Sheffield Symphony Orchestra (artistic director); Leeds College of Music (opera conductor). Previous Work: Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, Carmen, Great Expectations, Madame Butterfly, I Got Rhythm, Beauty and the Beast, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Traviata, The Three Musketeers, The Nutcracker, La Bayadère with Northern Ballet Theatre. Other ballet scores and arrangements include Dorian, La Sylphide, Eugene Onegin, Hansel and Gretel (chamber versions), The Coronation of Poppaea. Career Highlights: Second Prizewinner, Leeds Conductors’ Competition; arranging and producing the acclaimed CD of Great Expectations (Elgar); editing Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus in the orchestration attributed to Mozart, recently discovered in Halifax and televised on BBC 4; producing the NBT CDs of Peter Pan and The Three Musketeers. Personal: Enjoys playing the organ for Sunday services at St. Peter’s, Harrogate.

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