David Lan has announced the Young Vic’s spring 2010 season, which includes co-productions with English National Opera and Palestinian company Shiber-Hur, the return of director Luc Bondy and a transfer of The Cat In The Hat.
I Am Yusuf And This Is My Brother (19 January to 6 February) opens the year in the Main House. The co-production with Shiber-Hur is set in Palestine in 1948. Exploring the personal and the wider picture through its powerful and poetic exploration of history, memory and different forms of love, it is written by Young Vic international associate Amir Nizar Zuabi, whose Alive From Palestine was seen at the Waterloo venue in 2002.
It is followed in the Main House by David Harrower’s new version of Arthur Schnitzler’s Sweet Nothings (25 February to 10 April), which is directed by Luc Bondy. A co-production with the Vienna Festival, it is a tale of sexual longing, the cruelty of tradition and the vulnerability of those in love. Playwright Harrower won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play for Blackbird and recently adapted The Good Soul Of Szechuan for the Young Vic. Bondy is one of Europe’s most revered directors who previously staged Martin Crimp’s Cruel And Tender at the Young Vic in 2004.
Spring season in the Main House is concluded by the third collaboration between the Young Vic and ENO, Elegy For Young Lovers (24 April to 8 May). Directed by Fiona Shaw, who is currently starring in the National Theatre production of Mother Courage And Her Children, Elegy For Young Lovers tells the story of a poet who devours those around him in order to nourish his art and ego, and features music by German composer Hans Werner Henze.
The Maria theatre will open its 2010 season with the previously announced transfer of the National Theatre production of The Cat In The Hat, as director Katie Mitchell brings Dr Seuss’s children’s book to the stage. The show is yet to open at the National, where it plays in the Cottesloe theatre from 11 December.
Before the 2010 season takes over the Young Vic has its 2009 season to complete. The theatre’s revival of Annie Get Your Gun, starring Jane Horrocks and Julian Ovenden, opens this week, with a workshop production of Uncle Vanya playing in November and children’s production The Forest playing in December.
MA