The Gate theatre celebrates its 30th birthday this year with a diverse season of new work that continues its collaborations with Headlong theatre and Sadler’s Wells.
Under the heading Generation Gate, the spring season at the Notting Hill venue comprises a new work by Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga, Nocturnal, and a contemporary version of Euripides’s Medea.
Lyndsey Turner is to direct the UK premiere of Nocturnal, which plays from 16 April to 16 May (press night 21 April). Mayorga’s play centres on two men who live in the same apartment block. One likes long walks, Greek myths and foreign languages. The other likes making lists, fixing bikes and blackmail. One day they bump into each other in a local pub. Only this is no coincidence; one of them has been planning this moment for a very long time.
Mayorga is one of Spain’s leading playwrights whose work includes Way To Heaven – previously seen at the Royal Court – Seven Good Men, More Ash, The Library Of The Devil and Three Rings.
Turner is an Associate Director at the Gate theatre and has directorial credits including Contractions and Posh at the Royal Court.
Nocturnal is followed by Medea/Medea (18 June to 18 July, press night 21 June), a new version of the Euripides tragedy devised and directed by Dylan Tighe, the winner of the Gate/Headlong New Directions initiative.
In Medea/Medea, live performance interacts with pre-recorded image as the show probes the nature of translation, the concept of theatre and the place of myth in modern society.
Launched last year by the Gate and Headlong theatre company, New Directions aims to encourage emerging theatre artists to find a new approach to classic international plays.
In addition to the season at the Gate itself, the venue continues its collaboration with Sadler’s Wells by transferring dance theatre piece Press – seen at the Gate in February last year – to the Islington dance venue, where it plays from 28 to 30 May.
Created and performed by French choreographer Pierre Rigal, Press explores how our personal space is confined by the pressures of modern life. It is performed in a specially constructed boxed stage less than three and a half metres wide, within which Rigal performs a Houdini-esque choreographic challenge.
The Gate theatre is participating in the new Arts Council England scheme which offers free theatre tickets for under 26-year-olds. For more information, visit www.anightlessordinary.org.uk
CB