Theater: “Wuthering Heights” @ St. Ann’s Warehouse

When I lived in Brooklyn, I couldn’t wait to move into Manhattan. Now that I live in Manhattan, it seems I’m inexorably drawn back to Brooklyn. I find the chefs are more innovative and the theater frequently a departure from the same-old same-old.

Which brings me to my review of “Wuthering Heights,” an enjoyably nasty rock musical straight from the National Theater in London. As Heathcliff (Liam Tamne) tells us at one point, “if you want sweet and light…go to Broadway!”

Sound advice, as any fond memories of the romantic 1939 classic starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon will be swept away like heather on the moors.  This production at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO is closer in feel to “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” although candidly the music isn’t as good. And the play is more faithful to the Emily Bronte novel which makes it close to three hours long.

However, never underestimate SAW’s ability to keep things moving. Credit the casting. Tamne has Olivier-dashing looks but Lucy McCormick as Catherine is the antithesis of Merle Oberon: she is part-Goth, part-early Madonna and she can belt out tunes like Patti Smith.

The true find is Katy Owen, who plays several roles, including Isabella (the Geraldine Fitzgerald role in the movie) and Little Linton, Heathcliff’s delicate son. She is comedy gold, scrunching up her face, lapsing into baby talk and doing splits as skillfully as a circus performer. Owen is Charlie Chaplin crossed with a soupçon of Judy Carne.

There are so many cast members playing dual roles that at one point in the proceedings, the cast stops the show and asks the audience,  “Confused?” Yes but the clarification helped enormously, thank you very much. Especially since lovely Eleanor Sutton played both young Cathy and her grandmother, and rugged Tama Pherhean played both Hindley and his son Hareton.

Bottom line: If you like your classics reinvented with a sharp stick in the eye, then take the A train (or the C or the F trains) into Brooklyn. If anybody can snark the Brits, it’s the Brits themselves. And where else but Brooklyn?