Theatre News

Young Vic Stages Changeling & After Miss Julie in Maria

The Young Vic is staging two major revivals in its Maria Studio next year – Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling and Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie.

Directed by Joe Hill-Gibbons, who recently helmed The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Glass Menagerie for the venue, The Changeling runs from 2 to 18 February 2012 (previews from 26 January).

Middleton and Rowley’s classic tale of lust, murder, madness and adultery centres on the beautiful Beatrice-Joanna, who hires the repellent De Flores to kill the man her father wants her to marry. But once the deed is done Beatrice discovers it’s not money or jewels that De Flores intends to claim as his reward, but something far more precious.

It’s followed by After Miss Julie, which is directed by the Gate Theatre’s co-artistic director Natalie Abrahami and runs from 21 March to 7 April 2012 (previews from 15 March).

Patrick Marber’s 2003 play relocates Strindberg’s tale about a footman who seduces a count’s daughter on the night of a midsummer festival to an English country house in July 1945 on the night of the British Labour Party’s election victory.

After Miss Julie is a pilot for a new series at the Young Vic called Classics for a New Climate. According to press material, “Throughout the creative process the team will investigate and experiment with approaches to making
theatre while taking as little electricity off the national grid as possible.”