procrastination record / _Wuthering_Heights_

[Julian.West@mac.dartmouth.edu]

I've been meaning to post this _ever_since_I_joined_love-hounds_
_two_and_a_half_years_ago_.  It concerns a musical presentation
based partly on Kate's work, performed by Harvard students in
1986.  The piece was called "Wuthering Heights: a pop myth".  It
involved dancing, miming and sometimes lip-synching to recorded
music, much of Kate's.  (What suddenly reminded me of this was
someone's reference to Rickie Lee Jones a few days ago.)

The remainder of the posting consists of three things: extracts from
the theatre programme, and two reviews which appeared at the time.
Irregular capitalization, and the misspelling of "Bette Midler" in
the programme are original.  Typos might be mine.
[My comments in braces, thus.]

----------------------------------------------------------

  The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club presents:
  WUTHERING HEIGHTS a pop myth

  director/choreographer   Alek Keshisian
  producer                          John Lesher
  [many other names and job descriptions deleted]

  CAST
  Catherine                        Julie Glucksman
  Heathcliff                        Michael Allio
  Nelly Dean, a servant      Amy Brenneman
  Mr. Earnshaw, Catherine's father
  Hindley, Catherine's brother              
  Edgar Linton
  Isabella, Edgar's sister
  Zero, a fallen starlet
  Louie, an agent
  Catherine and LInton's daughter
  Heathcliff and Isabella's son
  Photographer

  [I deleted the other performers' names.  The only reason I could
    think of to include them is that someone might look at the list
    and say "Hey! I know her!" and I figure that's unlikely.]

  The Moors     [five dancers]
  Night People  [seven dancers]

   Special thanks [many people, plus:]
     The A.R.T.
     The H.R.D.C. Executive Board
     The Omaha Ballet
     Diego Hair Design
     Urban Exotica

   _Wuthering Heights_
     We Belong Together           Nelly Dean (Ricky Lee Jones)
     Gravity Overture             Nelly Dean (Ricky Lee Jones)
     Oh to be in Love             Catherine (Kate Bush)
     Running Up That Hill         Catherine (Kate Bush)

   _In Concert_
     Everything She Wants         Linton (Wham)
     Dress You Up                 Catherine (Madonna)
 
   _Wuthering Heights_
     Wrapped Around Your Finger   Heathcliff (Sting)
     Under Ice                    Catherine (Kate Bush)
     Waking the Witch             Catherine (Kate Bush)
  
   _The City_
     Love Me With A Feeling       Zero (Bet Midler)
     Living It Up                 Nelly Dean (Ricky Lee Jones)
     
   _In Concert_
     Hot In The City              Heathcliff (Billy Idol)
     Burning Up                   Catherine (Madonna)
    
   _Chapel_
     Eyes Without A Face          Heathcliff (Billy Idol)
    
following act one there will be a 15 minute intermission

   _In Concert_
     Everybody                    Catherine (Madonna)

   _Thrushcross Grange_
     After Hours                  Catherine (Madonna)
     Fortress Around Your Heart   Heathcliff (Sting)
     Stay                         Catherine (Madonna)

   _Moors/Wuthering Heights_
     Too Turned On                Isabella (Alisha)
            
   _Thrushcross Grange_      
     Night of the Swallow         Catherine (Kate Bush)
     Deep Space                   Nelly Dean (Ricky Lee Jones)
      
   _Moors_
     Shadows in the Rain          Heathcliff (Sting)
     Hello Earth                  Catherine (Kate Bush)
    
   _Wuthering Heights_
     Years May Go By              Nelly Dean (Ricky Lee Jones)
     Wuthering Heights            Catherine (Kate Bush)

----------------------------------------------------------

[from _The_Harvard_Independent_, April 10, 1986:]

_Heights_ of Style:  Moor is Less

_Wuthering_Heights: A_Pop_Myth_
Directed by Alek Keshishian
At the Loeb Drama Center
Through April 12

Heightened expectations can hurt even the best of efforts. When an
artists makes a reputation for himself, his audience begins to expect only
the best. Spielberg films have to be blockbusters; Rolling Stones albums 
must be classics.  The same is true for the much-publicized _Wuthering_
Heights_, a "pop myth" conceived by director Alek Keshishian. But despite
talent both on and off the stage, and eclectic choice of music, the play 
never quite lives up to its potential.

No student production this year has had as much hype as _Wuthering_ 
_Heights_, no play has been the object of so much speculation on potential
Broadway success. Keshishian's concept is certainly masterful: updating
Emily Bronte's classic 19th-century romance by combining it with MTV
glitz and flashy, visual appeal.  Keshishian notes, "It maintains the myth
of _Wuthering_Heights_... But I'm not going to sit here and pretuend that
it contains all the nuances of a 400-page novel in a two-hour play."

And Keshishian emphasizes that _Wuthering_Heights_ as performed on the
Loeb Mainstage is not the finished product, since the performers and the
production staff will have twice as much to do as the typical Harvard
dramatic group.  He says, "In addition to the task of interpreting the work,
we will also have to constantly revamp scenes to suit our space and literally
rewrite parts of the play as problems come up."

Unlike _Rita's_Haircut_ and _Traveller with a Lot of Luggage_, works by
Jennifer Burton, the performance of _Wuthering_Heights_ does not
represent the end product of Keshishian's honors thesis.  Keshishian, a
senior whose Special Concentration focuses on the adaptation of drama
to the stage, will take his experiences with _Wuthering_Heights_ and
use them to exemplify several prooblems involved in the transfer of a 
play from printed page to the theater.  One problem was the need to have
actors up on stage before a lot of the work could be done. Keshishian says,
"It's a real visual piece, rather than a theater piece with the emphasis
on the words."

While writing the work, Keshishian worried aobut picking out the important
feelings from the novel. "As I see it, _Wuthering_Heights_ has a lot to do
with selling out and trying to stay true to yourself," he says.

The songs by Rickie Lee Jones and Kate Bush do evoke the spirit of the 
novel.  Bush's frenzied, desperate "Running Up That Hill" is an
ingenioously appropriate selection to express Catherine's (Julie Glucksman)
seething under the domination of her brother Hindley (Evan Seevak).
Similarly, Bush's "Night of the Swallow" effectively conjures up 
Catherine's violent hallucinations.  And Jones's simple melodies aptly
convey the mood of the novel and of Nelly Dean (Amy Brenneman), its
narrator. Brenneman grasps Jones's subtle emotions and communicates
them beautifully through lip syncs, making the songs all the more vibrant
and understated.

But Keshishian relies too much on the music to carry the momentum of
the play. He becomes constricted by lyrics that seldom say precisely what
he wnats.  Bush's "Under Ice" captures the essence of Catherine's flight
into the thunderstorm, but Madonna's "Stay," a plea for forgiveness, 
misses the mark, since Cathy, while singing the words to Heathcliff,
turns back to Linton and his Hollywood world.

Keshishian fails to make up for his songs' shortcomings with enough
transitional narration.  It's easy to leave the show without understanding
what went on. Displaying the words to many songs on screens on either
side of the stage may be a way to help the audience follow the storyline,
but this maneuver distracts from the action onstage.

In a departure from the plot of the novel, much of the play centers around
the glitter and hype of the modern rock'n'roll "scene." Cathy, thrust
(rather clumsily) into the world of stardom, meets LInton (John Vaughan),
a cross between George Michael and Michael Jackson, and changes from
a Victorian Kate Bush into a flashy, dynamic Madonna. Of course, she leaves
the old-fashioned, "uninteresting" Heathcliff (Michael Allio) at
Wuthering Heights.

At this point the play begins to exhibit its limitations.  Linton sings the
Wham! song "Everything She Wants" to lure Cathy into his world. But
not only is the lip-synch boring, the lyrics don't fit the plot. The song
really has nothing to do with everything Cathy wants; it detracts from
the unity of the play without added meaning.

Keshishian does know how to use movement to create a visual spectacle.
His choreography is uniformly professional--especially brilliant is the
symbolizing of the wilderness of the moors with dancers dressed in rags 
and twirling ribbons.  The actors perform their minimalist gestures
fluently, a result of how the play was cast. Keshishian says of the
audition, "They had to pretend that they were a swallow in flight, using
their face, body, etc. . . We wanted to find people who were in tune with
their bodies."

The technical work, the sets, lights and sound further enhance the 
production. The minimalist sets never intrude upon the motion of the
actors and dancers. The representation of Wuthering Heights as a 
stairway above the moors creatively adds symbolism to the work--
the height evokes both an image of domination and an image of heaven.

Also impressive is the lighting. Despite the fact that this production is
one of the most ambitious endeavors ever by a Harvard lighting crew,
the audience never conscious of any unwieldiness or confusion. Lighting
director John Malinowski notes, "Besides the compexity of the work
itself, we also had a lot of trouble getting people who were willing to
set the lighting up over spring break. On opening night we had to get rid
of a couple of follow spots (spotlights) because we didn't have enough
people."

But though _Wuthering_Heights_ has much to admire technically, only a
few scenes have any real pizazz.  Isabella's sizzling "Turned On" brings
some magic to her encounter with Heathcliff. Cathy's "Hello Earth"
also taps the wellspring of profound romance and drama:

           Out of the cloud burst the head of the Tempest
           Murderer, Murderer of calm,
           Why did I go?
           Why did I go?

           Go to sleep little earth

Yet these are exceptions. Much of _Wuthering_Heights_ is lifeless,
admirable but not exciting. Indeed, if it weren't for some technical and
visual mastery, the play would fall flat. The concept, the music, the
choreography, the tech work are all first-rate, but there is definitely
something missing in the production--some spark, some energy, some fire.
_Wuthering_Heights_ is less than the sum of its parts, a stack of
kindling without a match.

                                      KEVIN PARK
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[from _The_Tech_ of MIT, Friday, April 18, 1986:]

Wuthering Heights revisited

_Wuthering_Heights_: A Pop Myth.
Conceived and directed by Alek Keshishian.
Starring Julie Glucksman, Michael Allio,
and Amy Brenneman.
Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club
At the Loeb Drama Center.
_____________
By JULIAN WEST
_____________
You have missed your chance to experience _Wuthering_Heights_: 
_the_event_, since it won't be out on video. That's a shame. It would make
a great pop film.

The play, an 80's update of the Br:onte novel, featured music by Kate Bush,
Madonna Ciccone, Sting, Ricky Lee Jones, and the two least objectionable
songs by Billy Idol.  While the songs were played the actors lip synched and
interpreted them.  If they did not quite act, they didn't dance either. Never
mind: they performed--and entertained.

When director/choreographer Alek Keshishian read _Wuthering_Heights_
in a Harvard tutorial, the book left a lasting impression on him. Moreover,
when hee got into Kate Bush he remarked how she managed to make
_Wuthering_Heights_ relevant to a contemporary audience in her song of
the same name. From that point, one thing led to another, culminating in
this show, which demonstrated Keshishian's understanding of both
_Wuthering_Heights_ and pop culture, and the intensity of feeling of each.

Shrewdly, Keshishian had chosen a single voice for each of his characters.
Kate Bush was Catherine, running wild on the lonely, windswept moors;
servant-class Nelly Dean mouthed the gutter slang of Rickie Lee Jones,
while Sting was Heathcliff.  The individual songs were chosen with equal
care: many seemed as if they were written for the show. Careful listeners
were rewarded with appropriate lyrics, as in "Years May Go By," 
"Fortress Around Your Heart" and "Running up that Hill" ("Is there so
much hate for the ones we love? Tell me we both matter, don't we?")
Keshishian steered clear of the temptation to include such tracks as
"The Hounds of Love" and "Like a Virgin" which could have been howlers.

After the first scene Catherine and Heathcliff, feeling stifled by Wuthering
Heights, escaped the confines of both the house and the book.
["Stepping out of the page..." -- Julian, here in 1989] 
With Wuthering Heights frozen in timelessness on the moors, Catherine
found herself in today's London, got Wham!ed, and turned into Madonna.
The rising star met Linton/George Michael, and they had a People-
magazine romance. Heathcliff, following her, became Billy Idol, and
suddenly we were in _Lifestyles_of_the_Rich_and_Famous_. After her
affair with Linton turned sour Catherine returned to Wuthering Heights.

Glucksman, surprisingly, had not studied Madonna videos for her part,
and said that she had never seen a Kate Bush video. But Keshishian clearly
had. His choreography enabled her to capture the look of both singers,
down to  small details. And if she was not quite Kate Bush when 
extending her arms, and not quite Madonna when  pulling off her jacket,
neither Bush nor Madonna could have performed the combined role credibly.
Equally fine performances were turned in by Michael Allio, as a roughly
handsome Heathcliff, and Amy Brenneman, whose character of Nelly Dean
had been elevated to the role of narrator. Among the supporting cast,
the five personifying the moors stood out by their dancing.

Brenneman was the only performer who got much to say with her mouth,
but Allio and Glucksman communicated effectively with hand signals, 
putting them halfway between dancers and sign language speakers.

As a pop show,  the whole sparkled. Appropriately, the stage crew had cut
back on set but cut loose on lighting. They hung more lights for this 
production than for any other in Loeb history, including Robert Wilson
extravaganzas. Apart from carefully focussed spots and brightly coloured
mood lighting, there were such innovations aas having Catherine give birth
and die on a light table, spookily illuminated from below.

The audience, which appeared to be universally 20, was happy to dance in
the aisles when invited  to do so.

The show di d not want to be a mainstage production watched by men in
pinstripes at an established theatre; what it desperately sought to be
was a cult midnight show drawing Madonna-wanna-bes to Harvard Square.
But there was not enough acting to attract a major theatre company,
nor enough dance to draw modern dancers; so _Wuthering_Heights_:
_a_pop_myth_ will probably never be performed again.  Which, as I said,
is a shame.
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                                               julian

"Yes he's such a sadist - he even buys 
Kate Bush records just to annoy the dog."