Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board Harvey Lichtenstein President and Executive Producer presents the Shared Experience production of Anna Karenina Running time: BAM Majestic Theater approximately two November 11-14, 1998 at 7:30pm hours and fifty minutes. November 14 & 15 at 2pm There will be one intermission. Anna Karenina Adapted by Helen Edmundson from the novel by Leo Tolstoy Director Nancy Meckler Designer Lucy Weller Music Peter Salem Lighting Chris Davey Company Movement Liz Ranken Production Associate Director Richard Hope Production Manager Alison Ritchie Company Stage Manager Felicity Field Deputy Stage Manager Julia Bradley Technical Stage Manager Gary Giles Costume Supervisor Yvonne Milnes Wardrobe Mistress Janice Moore Company Voice Work Patsy Rodenburg Russian Dance Francine Watson-Coleman American Stage Manager Kim Beringer The actors in Anna Karenina are appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association. The American stage manager is a member of Actors' Equity Association. Cast Simeon Andrews Stiva, Ba iIiff, Petritsky Karen Ascoe Dolly, Countess Vronsky Teresa Banham Anna Katha ri ne Ba rker Princess Betsy, Agatha, Governess, Railway Widow Ian Gelder Karenin, Priest Richard Hope Levin Pooky Quesnel Kitty, Seriozha Derek Riddell Vronsky, Nikolai Peasants, muffled figures played by members of the company The action is set in Russia in the 1870s. The first performance of Anna Karenina took place at the Theatre Royal, Winchester January, 30, 1992. The Anna Karenina stage set is generously funded by McFadden Pilkington & Ward, Solicitors and Registered Foreign Lawyers. Production Casting Toby Whale Acknowledgements Set Construction Streeter & Jessel Scenic Artist Adrian Roper Props Angela Simpson Production Photography Mark Douet Shared Experience thanks the following organizations for their support: The Arts Council of England, Westminster City Council, British Council, The Cochrane Theatre, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Ann Stanton, Argentine Club Educational Trust, Telstra UK Ltd, Robert and Elaine Photo by Mark Douet Hayward, The Almeida Theatre, Patrick and Diane Tyrrell Shared Experience is committed to creating theater which goes beyond the everyday, giving form to the hidden world of emotion and imagination. We see the rehearsal process as a genuinely open forum for asking questions and taking risks that redefine the possibilities of performance. At the heart of our work is the power and excitement of the performer's physical presence and the unique collaboration between actor and audi­ ence-a shared experience. Shared Experience Theatre has been instrumental in pioneering an exciting and distinctive performance style that celebrates the union of physical and text-based theatre. Consistently dedicated to innovation and exploration, the company enjoys artistic and critical success both at home and abroad. The company tours extensively and its work ranges from adaptations of novels to contemporary and classical drama. All Shared Experience productions are created . and developed at its London home, the Soho Laundry, a converted "Grade 11­ listed" building. The Laundry provides a base for the company's creative research, touring, youth and education work. Recent projects have included a workshop to share rehearsal techniques with young directors and an on-going program for actors wishing to learn the company's approach. Described by the British Council as a 'flagship organization,' Shared Experience is a truly international company having performed in over twenty countries. In autumn 1999 the company will remount its successful production of Jane Eyre which has already received invitations from all over the world. Nancy Meckler has been artistic director of Shared Experience for ten years. She was joined four years ago by associate director Polly Teale. Together they created the acclaimed Millon the Floss and War and Peace, both adapted by Helen Edmundson. Shared Experience's youth and education work is central to the company. All productions are accompanied by a comprehensive education program, in London andron tour. The company's Youth Theatre is based at the Soho Laundry and supported by Westminster City Council. Young performers come to stretch their physical and imaginative muscle in courses led by artists from within the company. It runs a wide variety of workshops and projects designed to put members in touch with the physical style of the main company's work. Photo by Mark Douet Working with Tolstoy The first time I read Anna Karenina, I became totally absorbed in Anna's story. The presence of the irrascible Levin was an irritant. I found myself constantly turning the pages to see how long I would have to wait before Anna's next appear­ ance. I was therefore surprised when I began talking to Nancy Meckler about the novel, to discover that she had virtually the opposite response and was very caught up in Levin's story-his love for Kitty and his search for the meaning of life. I read the book again. Levin began to appeal, but what really started to occupy my mind was why Tolstoy had chosen to put these two stories together? What is the relationship between Anna and Levin? We searched for answers to this question and soon began to realize that the adaptation must involve both characters. Without Levin, Anna Karenina is a love story, extraordinary and dark, but essentially a love story. With Levin it becomes something great. In choosing to tackle both strands, we were creating problems for ourselves. Levin's story is not, in itself, dramatic. "Whatl You're going to dramatize Levin?" people would cry when we revealed our intention. Of course, this just encouraged us. Two other things confirmed our thoughts: watch­ ing the films of the novel, all of which deal solely with Anna and none of which get beyond melo­ drama and cliche; then visiting Russia itself and finding that Russians talk about Levin and Anna with equal familiarity and affection. "Levin must be part of Anna," one man told us, "and Anna must be part of Levin."-Helen Edmundson Photo by Mark Douet Past & Present Twenty-five may not seem all that old in human terms, but in the average by Lyn Gardner life span of a theater company it's pretty venerable. When those involved in Shared Experience blowout the candles on the cake next year, there will be plenty to celebrate. The company is not just one of British theater's greatest survivors, it is also one of the most inventive. In a quarter of a century it has produced a diverse body of work which is lauded allover the globe, and developed a collaborative method of working which makes each and every production a truly shared experience. Since Mike Alfreds founded the company back in 1975 and developed a simple, effective story-telling technique in which actors shared the narrative, swapped roles and even played the scenery, Shared Experience has always been one step ahead of the rest. Alfreds' early novel adaptations were enor­ mously influential, not least on the RSC's celebrated Nicholas Nickleby. Alfreds' pioneering work predated the physical theater boom. But it was his successor Nancy Meckler, appointed in 1988, together with writer Helen Edmundson, who developed the idea of storytelling in which the inner lives of those on stage is made palpably physical. Together with Edmundson and Polly Teale, who joined the company as associate director in 1994, Meckler created a thrillingly theatrical and highly distinctive performance style for the company which is a celebratory marriage of physical- and text-based theater. Think of any Shared Experience production and you cannot but conjure up vivid images in your mind's eye: the flood at the end of Mill on the Floss (1994) captured in a whirl of chairs held by spinning, sinking actors; the headlong rush of the Battle of Borodino evoked merely by actors waving flags in War and Peace, a co-production with the Royal National Theatre in 1996. With these and other productions such as Anna Karenina (1992) and Jane Eyre (1997), the company has single-handedly reinvented the page to stage genre, creating works of art which are inspired by rather than handcuffed to the original novels. It is Shared Experience which has disproved the notion that when it comes to adaptations there is no getting away from the book. This welcome lack of the literal is evident elsewhere. Whether it is a novel adaptation, a Shakespearean play such as The Tempest (1996) or a modern continued after advertising section Past & Present drama, all of Meckler and Teale's work thrives on ambiguity and has a continued theatrical expressiveness which places it centrally in the arena of live per­ formances and miles from the drab naturalism of most TV and film drama. What they succeed in doing is in staging the physical manifestation of the inner journey of every character on stage. In particular they seem drawn to work which explores the lives of women and their struggles as lovers, sisters, mothers and daughters. The past and the present, the spoken and the unspoken, the real and the unconscious can exist side by side on stage whether it is the doomed lovers in Marie Irene Fornes' avant-gardist The Danube (1994), the rival siblings in Canadian Judith Thompson's eerie play about possessive love I Am Yours, staged at the Royal Court earlier this year, or the heroine of Teale's 1997 adaptation of Jane Eyre in which the mad woman in the attic is the repressed alter-ego of poor plain Jane. The vividness of such work has brought the company frequent invitations to tour abroad and won them numerous awards. It is a measure of their success that they remain as popular in Darlington and Poole as they do in Osaka and Tel Aviv. Throughout the years, the company has always remained true to the core philosophy that each and every performance is a 'shared experience' between actor and audience and that each production is a genuinely collaborative effort.