IN the relentless search for the Great Australian Play, it has often been said that Australian theatre managements bypass local playwrights in favour of tried and true stories taken from novels.

Xavier Herbert’s “Capricornia” and Kate Grenville’s “The Secret River” are Australian examples.

Then there are world classics such as “Moby Dick”, “Jane Eyre,” and now, in a show promoted by the Canberra Theatre with the words “boy, have we got a story for you”, Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”.

Director and adaptor of the play for Brisbane’s Shake & Stir Theatre, Nick Skubij, lives to bring the classics to life on stage.

Formed in 2005 to 2006 with two other friends, the company has made a name for itself with the stage version of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, two Roald Dahl shows and Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984”, both seen at The Q, Queanbeyan, over the last couple of years.

Skubij says they started out by introducing young people to Shakespeare, but soon looked to “classic stories or novels, adapting them to the stage, using them as stimuli to connect to today.”

The six people in the cast share with Skubij, who also performs, a fascination with the books they’ve studied at school, which is good because they get to play all the roles with the exception of Linden Wilkinson, who just plays the housekeeper Nelly Dean and Ross Balbuziente who just plays Heathcliff.

Unlike the famous Laurence Olivier film, Skubij’s play doesn’t finish with the death of Cathy, but ranges over 25 to 30 years into the next generation with the actress playing Cathy and also her daughter.

“We don’t set it in the future or anything like that, but we inject the story with contemporary relevance and then we shake it all up,” says Skubij.

“I wanted to show the book in just two hours on stage and without the second generation you don’t get the payoff from the love story between Heathcliff and Catherine.

“In our play, you learn about his unrelenting nature, about the way he’s been plotting his revenge over many years, but then, everyone in this play tears each other apart.”

“Wuthering Heights”, The Playhouse, March 9-12, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.