The Tenant of Wildfell Hall at Sydney Theatre Company

Anne Bronte’s gothic novel has been adapted for the stage and its depiction of domestic abuse is as shocking as it was in 1848.

Nikita Waldron, Anthony Taufa, Tuuli Narkle and Eliza Scott in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, at Sydney Theatre Company. Picture: Prudence Upton

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has been called the first feminist novel. Anne Bronte was certainly tougher on men than her sisters were and her novel, published in 1848, presented a brutal picture of habitual male drunkenness and domestic violence. It’s shocking that it is all utterly relevant more than 170 years later.

The story has romance and some gothic elements, including the wild rundown house that the mysterious tenant, Mrs Helen Graham, moves into. The stage design has a towering fireplace that is a crucial part of the plot in Act 2.

The villain, Arthur Huntingdon, is a classic portrait of a narcissistic, controlling, drunken abuser. The hero, Gilbert Markham, has his faults but is redeemed by honest love. The heroine Helen has some agency (although not as much as we might expect today) but is so devotedly pious and moral that she can be a little annoying. This adaptation tones that down a bit. The act of rebellion she commits – the engine of the story – was a big deal in 1848 but not so much now, at least not since Ibsen’s A Doll’s House ceased to be controversial.

Tuuli Narkle and Eliza Scott in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Picture: Prudence Upton

The adaptation is by Emme Hoy and she clearly loves the book. Her version works better, I suspect, for people who know the original. The novel has a fairly simple structure: Gilbert tells his story in the present (the 1840s), Helen tells of her past in her journal, Gilbert reads it and then resumes his narrative as a changed, newly awakened person.

Hoy’s play takes the two time frames of the story and weaves them together in a dramatic construction that often blurs them, so that Helen, particularly, moves between the two in a way that sometimes confuses the narrative. Elizabeth Gadsby’s architectural set, placed in the middle of the vast expanse of the Roslyn Packer Theatre stage, turns on a revolve for large parts of the action, as the characters come and go between spaces and rooms, blurring the distinctions further.

Renee Mulder’s attractive period costumes use a range of colours that clarify the character and time shifts, and lighting designer Trent Suidgeest lifts Bronte’s supposed realism to a level that makes us accept her melding of genres. There is a great composition and sound design by Clemence Williams that subtly pervades the entire production and uses the musical and singing power of Eliza Scott, who also plays two of the most interesting women in Bronte’s story.

Tuuli Narkle as Helen. Picture: Prudence Upton

Tuuli Narkle plays Helen with a strength that keeps shifting from scene to scene, from the romantic enthusiasm of her youth to the disillusionment of her married life. Ben O’Toole plays the seductive bastard of a husband and manages to shift into a mode almost but not quite sympathetic in his scene of decrepitude towards the end. Remy Hii is Gilbert, playing well the tricky journey from prat to romantic lead. Director Jessica Arthur gives him and Narkle a final moment and a neat wink at the ending.

Tara Morice, Steve Rodgers and Anthony Taufa are the veterans in this mostly young cast, each playing multiple roles. Nikita Waldren is mischievous as two of the wilder women and Danielle Catanzariti is lively as Helen’s son.

I greatly enjoyed what Hoy and Arthur have done with the material. Perhaps you can’t expect people to read a 400-page novel in order to increase their enjoyment of a play but to do so is certainly rewarding.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte. Adaptation by Emme Hoy. Sydney Theatre Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre, June 25. Tickets $57-$104. Bookings online. Duration: 2hr 45min, including interval. Until July 16.