This summer, the Almeida goes Greek
Season preview
ALMEIDA Greeks, the Almeida’s new season, features three major productions of classic tragedies, boldly reimagined for today’s audiences.
The season opens with Robert Icke’s new version of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which runs from Friday, May 29 to Saturday, July 18, 2015.
Orestes’ parents are at war in this family drama that spans several decades. Aeschylus’ greatest and final play, it asks whether justice can ever be done and is as pertinent today as it was when it was written more than two millennia ago.
Lia Williams returns to the Almeida, where she appeared in Celebration and The Room, to play Klytemnestra. Her other theatre credits include A Streetcar Named Desire (Gate Theatre, Dublin) for which she won the Award for Best Actress in The Irish Times Theatre Awards 2014; Old Times (Harold Pinter Theatre); and Earthquakes In London, Hot House, Mappa Mundi and King Lear (National Theatre).
Oresteia is followed – from July 23 to September 19 – by Anne Carson’s new version of Euripides’ Bakkhai. Directed by James Macdonald, the cast will include Ben Whishaw, making his Almeida debut as Dionysos, and Bertie Carvel as Pentheus and Agave.
In Euripides’ electrifying tragedy – a struggle to the death between freedom and restraint, the rational and the irrational, man and god – Pentheus has banned the wild, ritualistic worship of the god Dionysos but a stranger arrives to persuade him to change his mind.
Using three actors and a chorus, the production will echo the original performance mode.
The season closes with Rachel Cusk’s new version of Euripides’ Medea, which runs from September 25 to November 14, 2015. Rupert Goold (The Merchant of Venice, King Charles III, American Psycho) directs.
Medea’s marriage is breaking up. And so is everything else. Testing the limits of revenge and liberty, Euripides’ seminal play cuts to the heart of gender politics and asks what it means to be a woman and a wife.
Kate Fleetwood will make her Almeida debut in the title role. Fleetwood’s numerous theatre credits include King Lear, London Road and Rosaline (National Theatre); Our New Girl (Bush Theatre); and Macbeth (Gielgud Theatre/BAM/The Lyceum, Broadway).
Also at the Almeida: the world premiere of Mike Bartlett’s Game (February 23 to April 4) and the UK premiere of Simon Stephens’ Carmen Disruption, which reimagines Bizet’s opera Carmen and the possibility of love in a fractured urban world (April 10 to May 23, 2015).
For more information visit www.almeida.co.uk/.