The Barbican has announced the first sixth months of BITE:06 (Barbican
International Theatre Events), up to July, 2006.
26th January - 18th February
The Andersen Project
Written, directed and performed by Robert Lepage
Barbican Theatre
Lepage weaves the story of a Québécois artist whose travels
and chance encounters take him on a voyage of understanding and self-discovery.
In this new work, Lepage assumes the role of a distracted young writer,
in Paris at the invitation of the Opera Garnier, commissioned to create
the libretto for a children’s opera based on a Hans Christian Andersen
fairy tale.
1st - 11th February
Metamorphoses + Electra
Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices
Direction, text adaptation and music and gesture dramaturgy by Wlodzimierz
Staniewski
Electra is co-produced by Der Hebbel am Uffer Theater, Berlin
Supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture
In Polish, English and Ancient Greek
This is a rare chance to catch the astonishing Gardzienice Centre for
Theatre Practices. Under Staniewski’s artistic direction, the company
presents an electrifying double-bill - Metamorphoses, based on
the 2nd century story The Golden Ass by Apuleius and Electra
by Euripides.
21st - 28th March
Beckett on Stage - Rockaby / Ohio Impromptu
The Pit
In Rockaby, a spot-lit face in a rocking chair communes with
the darkness and the dead. In Ohio Impromptu,
two manifestations of a single character, Listener and Reader, face
each other over a wide-brimmed hat as a ’sad tale’ is recounted.
4th - 15th April
Beckett on Stage - Waiting for Godot
Barbican Theatre
With Barry McGoven (Vladimir), Johnny Murphy (Estragon) and Alan Stanford
(Pozzo).
19th - 23rd April
Beckett on Stage - Endgame
The Pit
25th - 29th April
Companhia De Danca Deborah Colker - Knot
Colker’s 16 dancers unfold their story around a huge sheaf of
ropes hanging from above the stage. Their bodies entwine and unroll
in ropes, as if they were knots - in a bizarre, inexhaustible fantasy.
Daring precision dominates the second part. After breaking free from
the fetters that previously kept them bound, the dancers indulge in
an elegant liberation dance around a cube with transparent walls.
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10th - 27th May
The Mirror For Princes (Kalila Wa Dimna) - Sulayman Al-Bassam
Theatre
Writer, director and company founder Sulayman Al-Bassam
The Pit
Intended originally as a book of Counsel for Kings, literally, a ’mirror’
for princes, these subtle and philosophical animal fables carry immense
significance to all sections of Arab and Persian society, until this
day. From India, via Persia, the tales reached the Arab world through
the pen of Ibn Al-Muqaffa, court scribe, wit, and radical reformer.
Part history, part political fable, the drama explores the creation
of these tales amidst the very real tragedy that unfolds around the
author himself, as Al-Muqaffa battles for reform in the midst of fervent
revolutionaries, heretic poets, religious propagandists, and a ruler
who names himself none other than ’God’s shadow on earth’.
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6th - 10th June
White White Black Stork - Ilkholm Theatre
By Abdullah Kadyri
The Pit
For Makhzum, a young Muslim poet and dreamer, and the other adolescents
growing up here, their search for identity becomes a painful one.
The world of their fathers brutally places them under the control
of their society’s traditions. Despite experiencing the first
feelings of love toward his comrade from the Madrassah, Makhzum is
forced into an arranged marriage. In a town divided by cultures, customs,
religious and state law, we feel the poignant path he has to tread.
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27th June - 1st July
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Yohangza Theatre Company
In this version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the award-winning
Yohangza Theatre Company of South Korea the fairy king and queen,
Oberon and Titania, reverse roles. Bottom is a country woman searching
for Sansam, very rare hundred-year-old ginseng, and Puck splits into
twins.
The tangled tale of four lovers is spun out through a fresh mix of
dance, voice, percussion, and performances bursting with mischief
and boundless energy. This hilarious, fun-packed 2005 Edinburgh hit
will delight and captivate both adults and children alike.
13th - 17th June
Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Cheek by Jowl presents Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s celebrated
all-male production of one of Shakespeare’s most glorious comedies.
In association with the prestigious Chekhov International Theatre
Festival, Twelfth Night is performed by an outstanding company of
some of Russia’s most notable actors.
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20th June - 8th July
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre - The Flowerbed
Choreography by Michael Keegan-Dolan
Two households, in common malignity. The Montagues and Capulets are
the neighbours from hell. Swords and poisons are replaced by garden
shears and amphetamines. The streets of Verona become a stage covered
with fresh turf. Love, illicit sex, drugs, nosy busybodies and gardening
become food for Keegan-Dolan’s fertile imagination. Despite their
bizarre behaviour, the familiarity of the characters generates an
uneasy sense of foreboding before the inevitable violence begins to
unfold. This dark vision embraces black humour and weird moments of
farce to counterpoint the beauty of a love story based loosely on
Romeo and Juliet.
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