The Barbican has announced a spring/summer 2011 season packed with theatrical luminaries and boundary-pushing performance.
Artistic associate Deborah Warner returns to the venue for the first time since her 2005 large-scale production of Julius Caesar that boasted a cast of more than 100. In May 2011 she stages a revival of Sheridan’s 18th century comedy The School For Scandal.
Another leading British director, Peter Brook, also returns to the Barbican, presenting the UK premiere of Bouffes Du Nord’s A Magic Flute in March.
The British contingent are joined by Canadian superstar director Robert Lepage, who stars in the UK premiere of The Blue Dragon, which revisits one of the characters from his 1985 play The Dragons’ Trilogy.
In addition to the directorial headline grabbers, the six month season also includes a host of companies well known to Barbican audiences. Cheek By Jowl’s Russian sister company The Chekhov International Festival returns with its production of The Tempest, Told By An Idiot is back with And The Horse You Rode In On: A Sequence Of Serious Follies, comedy kings Ridiculusmus attempt to create a UK football team for the 2012 Olympics in Total Football and dance company Boy Blue allows audiences to get up close and personal in the cabaret-set Touch.
Two festivals, SPILL, the festival of performance, and the London International Mime Festival, both add shows to the Barbican’s eclectic season, while antipodean companies Circa, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Belvoir and Black Swan State Theatre Company bring work from the other side of the world to East London.
The quirkiest show of the season, though, appears to be Duckie’s Lullaby (24 June to 24 July), a whole night’s entertainment in which the audience are encouraged to change into their pyjamas, climb into bed and let the performers aid them with stories and songs as they drift off to sleep before being woken the next day with breakfast.
MA