Shake & Stir Theatre is making its way across the east coast of the country, giving a new take to the dramatic and passionate story love and revenge on the moors, the classic Wuthering Heights.

Both stage and screen will be utilised. When a character is suppressing their emotions, a projection will light up the back of the stage depicting their true feelings.

Natural elements of fire and wind will also be brought into the stage environment, recreating those doleful moors.

Gemma Willing, who plays Heathcliff’s love interest Catherine Earnshaw, said audiences loved the gothic masterpiece by Emily Brontë due to the flawed natures of the characters.

“It’s a rollercoaster but it’s an absolute honour to play such a prolific character,” she said.

“I’m biased but I admire her a lot – I admire her free spirit. One of the main things I love about her is she’s so human – she has so many faults and so many flaws, but she’s just a human who’s trying to do the best she can in the society’s she’s in.

“I think that’s a universal struggle of doing what you think you should do versus what you think you should do.”

Willing said the “Catherine in me” loves Heathcliff, but she was also aware of his violent side.

“I have this conversation with a lot of girlfriends. You have someone in your life that you love to hate, and you hate to love them,” she said.

“Catherine doesn’t get to see the violent side of Heathcliff and it’s only later on in the novel that her daughter has to deal with it.”

She said Catherine and Heathcliff were like “magnets”.

“There’s this tragedy that she hasn’t chased her soulmate. It’s every girl’s romance dream because it’s so passionate,” she said.

”When you’re madly and deeply in love with someone, you feel like there’s thins part of you that belongs to them and it’s a physical kind of chemistry as well as emotional and spiritual - you feel like you’re one person and you’re soulmates.”

Willing studied theatre in Perth and has also appeared on the big screen, in Australian movie Looking for Grace.

She said film and theatre required a completely different acting skill set, especially when it came to projecting intimate scenes from stage.

“With theatre, it’s quite magical that what one audience will see, another will never see,” she said.

“In film, you can whisper and the camera will pick that up. Also with theatre, you don’t get to do another take if you stuff it up, which gets the adrenaline pumping.”

Wuthering Heights will be performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre on May 17 at 11.30am and 7.30pm. Tickets available at hermaj.com