Through A Glass Darkly - Almeida Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
MICHAEL Attenborough will direct Andrew Upton’s new stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Through A Glass Darkly at the Almeida Theatre, where it runs from June 16 (previews from June 10) to July 31, 2010.
Karin is a young wife, an older sister and an only daughter. Her kaleidoscopic interior world is a constantly changing picture, where the boundaries between the everyday and the holy defy distinction.
Karin’s family have taken her on a recuperative holiday. On a bleakly beautiful island, where their relationships become increasingly entangled as the three most important men in her life prove increasingly incapable of helping to cure her, Karin decides to take control of her own destiny.
Earlier this year, the Almeida Theatre Company, under the Direction of Michael Attenborough, were invited to take part in the Ingmar Bergman International Theatre Festival at the Dramaten (Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden) in Stockholm, to perform a rehearsed reading of Upton’s new adaptation of Through A Glass Darkly, which has subsequently been further developed in readiness for this production.
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, Through A Glass Darkly was Sweden’s contribution to the Venice Biennale in 1962, the same year that it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director, playwright and screenwriter, whose films include Smiles of a Summer Night, Scenes from a Marriage, The Magic Flute, Autumn Sonata and the Oscar winning Fanny and Alexander, The Virgin Spring and of course Through A Glass Darkly. He also directed extensively for the stage and was Executive Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and at the Residenz Theater in Munich.
Andrew Upton‘s first adaptation for the Sydney Theatre Company, where he is currently Co-Artistic Director and Co-CEO with Cate Blanchett, was Cyrano de Bergerac which debuted in 1999 and was reprised at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2005. His most recent adaptation, Philistines, played at the National Theatre in 2007 and was directed by Howard Davies. Other adaptations include Don Juan, Hedda Gabler, The Cherry Orchard and the Luigi Pirandello play Right You Are (If You Think You Are).
Michael Attenborough is Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre where his productions include The Mercy Seat, Five Gold Rings, Brighton Rock, The Late Henry Moss, Enemies, There Came A Gypsy Riding, Big White Fog, Awake and Sing!, The Homecoming, In a Dark Dark House and When the Rain Stops Falling.
Casting and the production team for Through A Glass Darkly will be announced next year.