How do you transform an actor into a werewolf and back without CGI? That is what Staffordshire’s New Vic will attempt when it stages a new production of Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves.
The Newcastle-under-Lyme theatre will present a “rare stage adaptation of this fascinating gothic horror” combining “innovative theatrical storytelling with contemporary circus”.
Written at the beginning of the Reclaim The Night movement in the 1970s, The Company of Wolves featured in Angela Carter’s second collection of work, The Bloody Chamber, which featured stories written in a Gothic style but with narratives suggested by traditional western European fairy tales.
It will be directed by New Vic artistic director Theresa Heskins and Upswing artistic director and New Vic associate director Vicki Dela Amedume MBE. The cast comprises Danielle Bird (Red), Lorna Laidlaw (Granny), Sebastian Charles (The Gentleman Werewolf), Tanya-Loretta Dee (Mother) and Dan Parr (Hunter).
Matthias Camilleri, Gabrielle Cook, Callum Donald and Jimmy Wong will use their circus, acrobatic and aerial skills to create the wolf pack.
Heskins said, “Angela Carter’s story of werewolves is impossible to stage. That’s why I thrill at the idea of this journey into the night and the danger of what we might find there.
“We have some amazing talent on our side including the four international circus artists who’ll play the wolf pack, we have a track record of making audiences jump out of their skin and we have Angela Carter’s alluring, unsettling script. This story about the threat and promise of the path through the forest is as significant as it ever was.”
The Company of Wolves will run at the New Vic from Friday 20 September until Saturday 12 October.