Troilus and Cressida highlight of RSC Stratford season

Published: 23 January 2018
Reporter: Steve Orme

Kathryn Hunter will play Timon of Athens Credit: Paul Stuart

Productions exploring “abuse of power, greed, lechery and human potential for change” form the basis of the winter 2018 season at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford.

In announcing the season, RSC artistic director Gregory Doran said, “we’re halfway through our project to stage every one of Shakespeare’s plays in the first folio, presenting work in a radically different way and making every play an event and celebrating Shakespeare’s continuing relevance to a contemporary audience.

“We’ve staged 19 Shakespeare productions since 2013, reaching a worldwide audience of 2.1 million.

“We open our winter season with my production of Troilus and Cressida which I’ve chosen to dedicate to John Barton, the co-founder of the RSC, who died last week.

“John was both a great director and teacher and simply one of the greatest influences in the acting of Shakespeare of the last century. He always declared that his favourite play was Troilus and Cressida, which he first directed in 1960. When I told him I would be directing it this year, he shared some of his passion for the play with me. I regret that he won't be around to tell me what I got wrong.

“I’m enjoying collaborating with virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie whose input is inspiring the very design of the Troilus set as we devise ways of making the whole theatre resound with the rhythm of war. We bring a gender-balanced cast to this testosterone-fuelled play on our main stage, exploring and challenging gender conventions for every character.”

Troilus and Cressida will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from 12 October until 17 November.

Michael Boyd returns to Stratford for the first time since stepping down as RSC artistic director in 2012 to direct Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe. He has edited the two parts into a single production. This version was staged in New York in 2014 with a US cast. It will play in the Swan Theatre from 16 August until 1 December.

David Edgar’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol returns “by popular demand” after running in 2017. It will take to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage from 4 December until 20 January 2019.

Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto’s new version of Molière’s Tartuffe, directed by Iqbal Khan, will run in the Swan Theatre from 7 September until 23 February 2019.

The season concludes with Timon of Athens, Shakespeare’s poignant satire on wealth, greed and betrayal, featuring Kathryn Hunter in the title role. This will the first Shakespeare title to play in the Swan during the RSC’s current journey through the first folio and the first time the play has been performed in that space. It will run from 7 December until 22 February.

The RSC’s new First Encounters with Shakespeare offering for younger audiences is The Comedy of Errors. The production plays in the Swan Theatre from 19 until 27 October and will then tour schools and theatres nationwide. The professional cast will be joined by young performers from across the country.

Doran added, “we’re making it even easier for first-time visitors to see our shows, with a new First Time Fridays offer of two tickets at £10 each if you’ve never been to the RSC before.” Twenty tickets will be available for Royal Shakespeare Theatre productions, 10 for Swan Theatre productions and six for those in The Other Place studio. The offer is open to anyone new to the RSC’s database.

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