Barbican to stage three-week Beckett Season
The Barbican will stage an International Beckett Season next summer, as part of its newly announced 2015 season.
Opening in June, the three-week season will see nine Beckett pieces performed by "outstanding international companies and artists", including American Robert Wilson's "sharply stylised" version of Krapp's Last Tape and Andrew Upton's Sydney Theatre Company production of Waiting for Godot.
Lisa Dwan will reprise her three solo pieces: Not I / Footfalls / Rockaby in The Pit, while Pan Pan Theatre from Ireland presents its take on Beckett's radio play All That Fall.
The Beckett Season will run in four locations, and it will be possible for audiences to see up to three different productions on the same day.
Other highlights of the new season include the return of Cheek by Jowl to the Barbican with their new Russian production of Measure for Measure, which runs in the Silk Street Theatre from 15 to 25 April 2015.
Also from Russia, Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre, performs Pushkin's Eugene Onegin in the main Barbican Theatre from 18 to 21 February.
Théâtre de la Ville-Paris return in February with Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota.
And in January the London International Mime Festival will bring three pieces to the Barbican: 32 rue Vandenbranden by Belgian dance collective Peeping Tom; Light by Theatre Ad Infinitum, inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations about state surveillance; and American puppeteer Basil Twist's Dogugaeshi.
Ninagawa and Warner
As previously announced, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg bring a new translation of Antigone to the Theatre in March, in a co-production with the Barbican starring Juliette Binoche and directed by Ivo van Hove (A View from the Bridge). And Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre presents its acclaimed production of To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Robert Sean Leonard as Atticus Finch, from 24 June to 25 July.
To mark the Japanese theatre director Yukio Ninagawa's 80th year, his production of Hamlet will be staged in May, ahead of the sold-out Benedict Cumberbatch production which opens in August. Ninagawa will also stage his "mind-bending epic", Kafka on the Shore, based on the work by cult author Haruki Murakami.
The RSC continues its renewed relationship with the Barbican with A Mad World My Masters (29 April-9 May), and English National Opera also returns with the world premiere of Between Worlds (11-25 April), based on the events of 9/11, directed by Barbican associate Deborah Warner.
Toni Racklin, the Barbican's head of theatre, said 2015 will be an "exceptional year of theatre, dance and opera".
"The season sees three of our artistic associates in the Theatre; leading actors and artists from around the world appear in abundance; a host of world-class directors tackle the classics; and we continue to forge and strengthen relationships with major national and international partners."
