Wuthering Heights
By (Author) Deepak Verma
By (author) Felix Cross
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Methuen Drama
18th August 2009
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
822.92
Paperback
96
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 6mm
86g
The scorched desert of Rajasthan is the setting for this musical adaptation of Emily Bronte's timeless tale of passion, jealousy and revenge.
Shakuntala is the fiery and headstrong daughter of spice merchant Singh. Krishan is the wily street urchin from Bombay that Singh brings home after a trip to market. Thrown together as unlikely siblings, a tumultuous romance soon develops. But can their love withstand Indian society's taboos and hierarchies, not to mention Shakuntala's yearning for a life of luxury that only neighbouring landowner Vijay can provide
Wuthering Heights, one of the world's great love stories, is given a vibrant new life in this new adaptation produced by Tamasha and inspired by classic Indian cinema.
'This adaptation by Deepak Verma is persuasive enough to have reduced the three Oldham-Indian ladies beside me to tears Verma might well have struck gold with his idea of relocating the tale of doomed passion and poetic grand vision from the bleak, windswept Heights to the scorched desert of late 18th-century Rajasthan.' Lynne Walker, Independent, 24 March 2009 'For rigid Victorian values and snobbery, read stringent Indian hierarchies; for complicated, contradictory Bollywood heroine, see feisty, single-minded Yorkshire lass Verma has spiced up the English with some humour and incorporated a number of Hindi phrases so that the dialogue comes across more authentically in the genre of Bollywood. It certainly adds an exotic touch An imaginative perspective on a great classic.' Lynne Walker, Independent, 24 March 2009 'For sheer, passionate understanding of the romantic impulse, and of the nature and tragedy of the doomed romance between Krishnan and Shakuntala (the Rajasthan Heathcliff and Cathy), this show knocks the recent jokey and apologetic British touring version into a cocked hat.' Joyce McMillan, Scotsman, 23 April 2009 'It delivers the basic stuff of the story with a style and dautlessness that Bronte herself would surely have admired' Joyce McMillan, Scotsman, 23 April 2009 'Deepak Verma's concept, translating Emily Bronte's 1840s tale from the Yorkshire moors to the desert landscape of Rajasthan, is seductive. The ensemble spin in beautiful scarlet turbans and green saris on the zigzagging slopes of a goldern dune' Kate Bassett, Independant on Sunday, 03 May 2009
Deepak Verma's first play, Pool Of Tranquility, was selected in the finals of the Royal Court Young People's Festival in 1992. That led to a BBC Radio 4 commission to write a play based on the life of India's most famous bandit, Phoolan Devi. He's since penned plays for Radio 4, the BBC World Service and a play read at the Kings Head, Islington. Deepak Verma's stage adaptation Ghost Dancing, based on mile Zola's Thrse Raquin, was published by Methuen Drama in 2001.