Mitchell Adapts Virginia Woolf’s Waves???

Another female director who’ll be back at the National this autumn is Katie Mitchell. She’ll follow her current NT Lyttelton production of Chekhov’s The Seagull, in a new version by Martin Crimp starring Juliet Stevenson and Ben Whishaw, with a stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1931 stream-of-consciousness novel The Waves in the NT Cottesloe. Credited as Woolf’s most experimental work, The Waves consists of dramatic monologues from six characters which are broken up by poetic sections describing a coastal setting at different times of the day. Last year in the Cottesloe, Mitchell – working with Caryl Churchill and her collaborative cast – presented a highly acclaimed version of Strindberg’s rarely staged A Dream Play, which, like Woolf’s work, also explored concepts of individuality and self through a stream of consciousness and semi-consciousness. Mitchell’s other work at the National includes Ivanov, Three Sisters and Iphigenia at Aulis. Full details of the two final new productions in the National’s remaining 2006 season are due to be announced in late August.

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