Rating: ***
Kate Bush got it right when, aged 19, she condensed Emily Bronte's doomed moors-set romance into a four and a half minute pop classic. The young Cork-based Playgroup company don't quite go that far in this work in progress developed over a two-week residency at the Arches, but they come pretty close. More show and tell than show per se, this is a 35-minute presentation concerning what may or may not be required to put on something that could eventually end up as a finished product of The Heights.
The result is a self-referencing sketch-book juxtaposition between out-front contemporary reworkings of the piece's source material set against deadpan folksy renditions of Bonnie Tyler's bombastic smash hit, Total Eclipse of the Heart and, yes, Kate Bush's precocious mini masterpiece. The image of street corner buskers is all too appropriate.
While one could question the necessity of showing such developing work on a public platform, let alone charging eight quid for the privilege, it will be fascinating to see the finished whole when the company return. As speculative as any interpretation is just now, one can imagine director Tom Creed and his bright if at times rudderless young cast ripping up Bronte's set-text classic and injecting new life into it.
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