Laurence Olivier Award-nominee Ruth Wilson is to lead the cast of Through A Glass Darkly at the Almeida theatre this June.
Adapted by Andrew Upton from Ingmar Bergman’s 1962 Oscar-winning film, Through A Glass Darkly centres on Karin, a wife, older sister and only daughter who has schizophrenia. When her family take her on a recuperative holiday, relationships become increasingly entangled, and as the three most important men in her life prove incapable of curing her, Karin decides to take control of her own destiny.
Wilson, nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in this year’s Laurence Olivier Awards for her recent performance in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse, took part in a rehearsed reading of Through A Glass Darkly at a Bergman festival in Stockholm last year alongside Luke Treadaway and Alex Jennings. Speaking to Official London Theatre about the experience, Wilson said: “That was amazing; that was really fun to do and a great script, a great concept. Ingmar Bergman is quite dark and surreal and quite stylised, and Andrew has adapted it so it’s modernised, but it’s still incredibly sparse as a piece of writing, and very simple. It’s quite eerie and it deals with lots of different issues but in a very subliminal way, so I think everyone watching it would come out a bit intrigued by it, and I really hope they do it next year at the Almeida.”
In addition to A Streetcar Named Desire, Wilson’s previous work includes Gorky’s Philistines – also adapted by Upton – at the National Theatre, and screen roles in Jane Eyre, Capturing Mary, The Prisoner and Small Island.
Upton, who has adapted Through A Glass Darkly, is the co-Artistic Director – with his wife Cate Blanchett – of Sydney Theatre Company. His plays include Riflemind, which ran at Trafalgar Studios in 2008, and an adaptation of The White Guard which plays at the National Theatre this March.
No further casting has yet been confirmed for Through A Glass Darkly, which runs from 10 June (press night 16 June) to 31 July.
CB