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Complicite's Mnemonic Comes Home to Riverside

Theatre Complicite's multi award-winning Mnemonic returns next month to London and to Riverside Studios, where it first played in 1999. As part of a continuing world tour, the newly reworked version will play from 6 to 18 January 2003, with a special fundraising gala held on 16 January in memory of actress Katrin Cartlidge.

Cartlidge was part of the show's original devising cast, which also included Richard Katz, Tim McMullan, Stefan Metz, Kostas Philippoglou, Catherine Schaub Abkarian and Daniel Wahl. The 41-year-old actress died on 7 September 2002 following complications arising from pneumonia.

Mnemonic is conceived and directed by Complicite's Simon McBurney and designed by Michael Levine. The current cast are McBurney, Susan Lynch (taking the role created by the late Cartlidge), Hannes Flaschberger, Dan Fredenburgh, Tim Mcmullan, Aurelia Petit and Kostas Philippoglou.

A man alone in his London flat is unable to sleep. He searches in his memory, trying to make sense of the mysterious disappearance of his lover. Or does he imagine? In 1991 tourists descending from a 300-metre peak discover a shriveled, naked body emerging from the ice. Who is he? How did he die? What is he holding in his hand?

Place and memory collide while stories that are older than the millennium connect to stories that surround us in everyday life. Stories of journeys fragment, reflect, repeat and revolve like the act of memory itself as Mnemonic questions our understandings of time, our capacity to distort history and our attempts to retell the past.

Since its original London opening at Riverside Studios , Mnemonic has played at the National Theatre and also travelled to Barcelona, Paris, Sarajevo, Munich, Warsaw, Helsinki, Thessaloniki, Strasbourg, Lyon and had a three-month off-Broadway season. Its many awards include the Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, the Time Out Live Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

The production is lit by Paul Anderson with sound by Christopher Shutt and costumes by Christina Cunningham.

- Terri Paddock

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