Theatre News

Chiwetel Ejiofor teams with Joe Wright in new Young Vic season

18 October 2012

The Young Vic Theatre has announced its 2013 season, opening with the return of the critically acclaimed A Doll’s House starring Hattie Morahan and Dominic Rowan and featuring a new play by Martinique poet and politician Aimé Césaire, starring Olivier Award-winner Chiwetel Ejiofor and directed by Joe Wright.

A Doll’s House returns to the Young Vic after a successful run earlier this year. The production, which is adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Carrie Cracknell, runs from 2 to 20 April 2013.

Feast (1–23 February 2013) is an exploration of the Yoruba culture directed by Rufus Norris (Cabaret, London Road, Vernon God Little) and written by five playwrights from across the world. On their way to a feast, three sisters are separated at a crossroads by a trickster. To be reunited, they must undertake an incredible and mystical journey from 18th century Nigeria to Brazil, Cuba, the US and the UK in 2013.

Public Enemy (13 May – 8 June 2013), Ibsen’s timeless story of corruption and courage, is directed by Richard Jones (Government Inspector) in a new version by David Harrower. When Dr Stockmann discovers that the waters of a new public spa are toxic, he expects gratitude and glory. But his revelation makes him the most hated man in town. How far will a man go to stand up for the truth?

Next up, A Season in the Congo by Aimé Césaire tells the true story of the 1960 Congo rebellion and assassination of the political leader Patrice Lumumba in three turbulent acts. Directed by BAFTA Award-winner Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice), it stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, who returns to the London stage for the first time since his Olivier award-winning performance as Othello in 2007. A Season in the Congo runs from 16 July – 10 August 2013 (previews from 6 July).

The final production in the Main House will be American Lulu (13-24 September) a reworking of Alban Berg’s unfinished opera by Olga Neuwirth, directed by John Fulljames in a co-production with The Opera Group. In 1950s New Orleans, a young dancer’s world is slowly torn apart by the jealous and controlling men and women desperate to be her lover. As the seductive and scarred Lulu looks back at her life, she faces a sordid history of sex, murder and suicide.

In the Maria

The smaller Maria studio will host two new shows; Above Me the Wide Blue Sky, the follow up to Fevered Sleep’s critically acclaimed On Ageing in 2010, which runs from 12 to 28 March 2013 (previews from 7 March), and My Perfect Mind, an exploration of the resilience of the human spirit from company Told by an Idiot, which runs from 5 to 20 April 2013 (previews from 3 April).

Young Vic artistic director David Lan said today: “Our 2013 Main House season is a series of shows all radical in their own way. These shows stand at the root of ideas, processes and events that have transformed the way we see and live in the world.”