Theatre News

Chereau Postpones I Am the Wind a Week, 10 May

I Am the Wind, the first-ever English-language stage production helmed by revered French director Patrice Chereau, has been delayed by a week at the Young Vic, where it’s the final main-house offering in the theatre’s year-long 40th anniversary season.

Cast illness in the two-hander has put rehearsals behind schedule. The production will now open on 10 May 2011 (previews from 5 May) and continue, as planned, until 21 May. It had originally been due to open on 5 May (previews from 26 April).

Chereau is perhaps best known in this country for his films La Reine Margot (which won the Cannes Jury Prize) and Intimacy. Though one of the leading theatre directors in France for decades, Chereau’s work has not been seen on the London stage since his famous production of La Dispute transferred to the National in 1974. I Am the Wind also marks the first time Chereau has originated a production in the UK.

The piece – a large-scale international collaboration – also brings him together with two other great names of European theatre: Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse and Olivier Award-winning Briton Simon Stephens, who has adapted Fosse’s 2007 play for this English version. I Am the Wind follows two life-long travelling companions bound together on a suicidal journey across a vast ocean. It’s performed by Tom Brooke and Jack Laskey.

The co-production between the Young Vic and France’s Theatre de Ville is designed by Richard Peduzzi, with costumes by Caroline De Vivaise, lighting by Dominique Bruguiere and music by Eric Neveux, with artistic collaboration from Thierry Thieu Niang.