It was former Citizens
Theatre boss Giles Havergal who told the Gorbals emporium's current
artistic director Dominic Hill that Dr Faustus had never been
produced at the theatre during his tenure. Given the body of
classical plays produced with such flamboyant verve during Havergal's
thirty year reign over the theatre along with fellow directors Robert
David Macdonald and Philip Prowse, that Christopher Marlowe's play
had never been tackled in the Gorbals came as a surprise to Hill.
Today's exclusive
announcement in the Herald of the Citz's forthcoming Spring 2013
season finds Hill addressing this oversight by putting Dr Faustus at
the centre of a programme that aims to make the classical
contemporary. As tickets go on sale today for all shows, we can also
announce that Hill's production of Dr Faustus will reunite him with
the creative team behind his production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt while in
charge of Dundee Rep.
As well as writer Colin
Teevan coming on board to rewrite the play's weakest and most
contested acts, Dr Faustus will be a co-production with West
Yorkshire Playhouse, who recently appointed Hill's former co-director
at Dundee Rep, James Brining, as artistic director.
“I've always loved
the play,” Hill says of Dr Faustus, “and I'm fascinated, as I
think a lot of people are, by the idea of what is good and evil in
the modern world, by the fact that we supposedly live in a secular
society, but how, in the world of entertainment, the supernatural,
the divine and ghosts still predominate. The way that Faustus thinks
that fame, wealth and sex are missing from his life, that couldn't be
more current.”
As well as Dr Faustus,
Hill's new programme will join the dots between all the theatres he
has run in other ways. Director and designer Stewart Laing will
return to the theatre where he defined his career with a production
of Jean Genet's The Maids, a play which continues Laing's ongoing
inquiry into the European avant-garde in keeping with his early work
at the Citz. Genet's play hasn't been seen in the Gorbals since
Lindsay Kemp's production at the Citz's studio offshoot, The Close,
in 1971. Kemp's take on the play featured a young Tim Curry in as
cast originally meant to take the show to London before the plug was
pulled on it by Genet's agent. Genet was also favourite of the
directorial triumvirate, with The Blacks, The Balcony and The Screens
produced during the 1980s.
“It's a tricky play
to get right,” Hill admits, “but, rather than hark back to
something that the Citz is renowned for, I think Stewart has the
right aesthetic sensibility to make it sexy and shocking enough for
today.”
Laing will also bring
his hit participatory event, The Salon Project, to the Citizens
following Laing's Untitled Productions' successful run at Edinburgh's
Traverse Theatre. It was while Hill was in charge of that theatre
prior to moving west that he first enabled Laing to create The Salon
Project, which dressed the entire audience in period costumes, many
of which were sourced from the Citz.
“I feel very attached
to it, “ Hill says, “and it seems right for here before Stewart
takes it to London.”
Inbetween The Maids and
The Salon Project, the Citizens will collaborate with Edinburgh's
Royal Lyceum Theatre – one of the few main stages Hill hasn't been
in charge of – for Donna Franceschild's new stage version of her
1990s TV drama, Takin' Over The Asylum. Franceschild's hit show was
an early chance to see both David Tennant and Ken Stott on a small
screen, and Royal Lyceum director Mark Thomson's new look at the
script is a perfect example of Hill's second priority for the Citz.
“I've always said
that what we're about is classic plays and Glasgow plays,” he says.
“They don't fit together, but the tension between the two is really
exciting.”
Following the Citz's
co-production with Headlong on Mike Bartlett's new version of Medea
starring Rachael Stirling, the two companies continue what has proved
to be a fruitful partnership with a new look at Chekhov's The
Seagull.
“Again,” says Hill,
“it's a classic play, and, although it's not a re-write like Medea,
it won't feel like dusty Chekhov. It will feel relevant and
contemporary, and it feels right that it's in our programme
The season will end
with a double bill of Far Away and Seagulls, two short plays by Caryl
Churchill, whose best known play, Top Girls, was seen in a production
at the Citizens in 2004. The double bill, directed by Hill, occupies
the same slot as his productions of Endgame and Footfalls, two solo
pieces by Samuel Beckett rarely seen on a big stage.
“These are
contemporary classics,” Hill says of Churchill's plays. “Far Away
starts off quite ordinary, then goes somewhere quite surreal. Caryl
Churchill is a genius of a writer, and she should be done more here.”
As he talks, Hill is
taking time out from rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty, his first
Christmas show since taking over the theatre. “Sleeping Beauty
slightly reminds me of The Three Musketeers,” Hill says of Chris
Hannan's play, which Hill directed at the Traverse. “It's neither a
pantomime or a Christmas show, and it also slightly reminds me of Ubu
[which Hill directed at Dundee Rep], in that it's slightly anarchic.”
Beyond these other nods
to the past, Hill's season clearly has its eye on the future.
“I've only done one
year here,” he says, “but this season feels much more like what I
want this place to be in terms of reinterpretations of classic plays.
Both Dr Faustus and The Maids. have an epic universality about them.
They're both about big things, and that's what I think the Citizens
should be about, creating theatre for a modern audience that's about
the things that matter in life. I've said it a million times, but I
believe in the idea of theatre as an event and an experience, and I
think a lot of the shows in the season will have that sense of an
event. In that way, I hope we're looking forwards rather than
backwards,”
Tickets for the
Citizens Theatre's Spring 2013 season go on sale today.
Citizens Theatre Spring 2013 Season At A Glance
THE MAIDS
Thu 17 January – Sat 2 February
DIVIDED CITY
Hamilton Town House
Thur 7 February – Sat 9 February,
TAKIN’ OVER THE ASYLUM
Thu 14 February - Sat 9 March
This production will also play at the Royal Lyceum,
Edinburgh, 13 Mar – 6 Apr
THE SALON PROJECT
Fri 15 March – Sat 23 March
This production will also play at the Barbican London, 4
Apr –14 April
GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL
Mon 25 March – Sat 30 March, 8.30pm
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
Thu 4 April – Sat 27 April
THE SEAGULL
Wed 1 – Sat 11 May
FAR AWAY & SEAGULLS
Thu 23 May – Sat 8 June
The Herald, November 20th 2012
The Herald, November 20th 2012
ends
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