NATIONAL THEATRE WALES A PROVINCIAL LIFE BY PETER GILL FROM A STORY BY ANTON CHEKHOV 1-17 MARCH PULL OUT PROGRAMME #NTW17 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG 01 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES A PROVINCIAL LIFE BEHIND THE SCENES A PROVINCIAL LIFE SPRING 2012 02 #NTW17 Photographs Share your Helen Maybanks / views and National Theatre Wales join the conversation about the show on twitter @ntwtweets 03 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES A PROVINCIAL LIFE PETER GILL Gill has directed over 100 productions in the UK, Europe and North America, bringing extraordinary life, through his intricately detailed and impressionistically beautiful aesthetic, to both the modern and classical repertoires, including acclaimed productions of plays by Buchner, Congreve, Otway, Shakespeare, Hampton, Orton, Osborne, Pinter, McCafferty and Wright. He has engaged with Chekhov as a writer and director throughout his life, in productions at the Royal Court, Riverside Studios, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. The only Welsh writer besides Dylan Thomas whose work has been staged by the Royal National Theatre, his plays include The Sleepers’ Den (Royal Court 1965), Over Words Photographs Gardens Out (Royal Court 1968), Small Change (Royal Court 1976), Kick for Touch (Royal Barney Helen Maybanks / Norris National Theatre Wales National Theatre 1983), Cardiff East (Royal National Theatre 1997), Certain Young Men (Almeida 1999), The York Realist (English Touring Theatre 2001), Original Sin (The Peter Gill was born in Cardiff in 1939, and Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2002) and Another began his professional career as an actor. Door Closed (Theatre Royal Bath, 2009). After several years on stage, he began to write and direct while working at the His work has repeatedly examined the Cardiff Royal Court, where he was responsible for of his past as a ‘lost domain’ that can be introducing the plays of D.H.Lawrence to the imagined but never revisited, and his return theatre, and pioneered ideas of postmodernist to direct A Provincial Life (originally presented staging with his production of The Duchess at the Royal Court in 1966) marks his first of Malfi. His first play, The Sleepers’ Den, was collaboration with National Theatre Wales. staged at the theatre in 1965, and he has continued to present work at the Royal Court throughout his career. He was the founding director of Riverside Studios, which was for a period one of Europe’s leading arts centres, mixing a programme of home grown drama with an extraordinary roster of international artists from Samuel Beckett to Tadeusz Kantor, and of the National Theatre Studio, which quickly became one of the most important centres for the development of new work in Britain. #NTW17 Share your views and join the conversation about the show on twitter @ntwtweets A PROVINCIAL LIFE SPRING 2012 04 PRODUCTIONS & PLAYS 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 64 70 80 92 01 Assistant Director at Associate Director at Royal Scrape Off the Black The Way of the World The Seagull* Royal Court Theatre Court Theatre Tunde Ikoli/Riverside Studios William Congreve/Lyric Hammersmith Royal Shakespeare Company; Swan Theatre 65 Landscape and Silence Julius Caesar 94 A Collier’s Friday Night Harold Pinter/Lincoln Center, New York William Shakespeare/ New England Speed-the-Plow D.H. Lawrence/Royal Court Theatre Riverside Studios Richard Nelson/ Daved Mamet/ Hedda Gabler Royal Shakespeare Company New Ambassador Theatre 66 Henrik Ibsen/Stratford Festival, Associate Director of Royal The Dwarfs Canada National Theatre 95 Luther Harold Pinter/Traverse Theatre Uncle Vanya John Osborne/Royal National Theatre 71 81 Anton Chekhov/Field Day The Local Stigmatic Macbeth A Month in the Country Theatre Company The York Realist* Heathcote Williams/Royal Court William Shakespeare/Stratford Ivan Turgenev trans Isaiah Berlin/ English Touring Company Theatre; Traverse Theatre Festival, Canada Royal National Theatre A Patriot for Me John Osborne/Royal Shakespeare The Look Across The Eyes/ O’Flaherty VC The Duchess of Malfi Don Juan Company; Barbican Lovely Evening* George Bernard Shaw/Vancouver John Webster/Royal Court Theatre Molière trans John Fowles/ BBC Radio 4 Festival; Mermaid Theatre Royal National Theatre The Cherry Orchard* 72 Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon 02 A Provincial Life* Crete and Sergeant Pepper Much Ado About Nothing Original Sin* Royal Court Theatre John Antrobus/Royal Court Theatre Shakespeare/Royal National Theatre 97 Crucible Theatre, Sheffield Cardiff East* 67 82 03 The Daughter in Law Royal National Theatre The Soldier’s Fortune D.H. Lawrence, Schauspielhaus Bochum Danton’s Death Scenes from the Big Picture Thomas Otway/Royal Court Theatre Owen McCafferty/ Georg Büchner/Royal National Theatre Tongue of a Bird 73 Royal National Theatre Ellen McLaughlin/Almeida Theatre The Daughter-in-Law The Merry-Go-Round Major Barbara D.H. Lawrence/Royal Court Theatre 04 D.H. Lawrence/Royal Court Theatre George Bernard Shaw/ 99 Royal National Theatre Romeo and Juliet Crimes of Passion 74 Certain Young Men* William Shakespeare/ Joe Orton/Royal Court Theatre Twelfth Night 83 Almeida Theatre Royal Shakespeare Company Kick for Touch* William Shakespeare/ 05 68 Stratford-upon-Avon Royal National Theatre Friendly Fire* The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd BT National Connections Season Days of Wine and Roses D.H. Lawrence/Royal Court Theatre 75 Small Change* JP Miller/Donmar Warehouse Fishing Royal National Theatre 69 Michael Weller/New York Epitaph for George Dillon Life Price Shakespeare Festival Tales from Hollywood John Osborne and Anthony Creighton/ Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O’Neil/ Christopher Hampton/ Comedy Theatre Royal Court Theatre Royal National Theatre As You Like It 06 Shakespeare/Nottingham Playhouse; Much Ado About Nothing Edinburgh Festival 84 The Voysey Inheritance William Shakespeare/ Harley Granville-Barker/ Founder Director of Royal National Theatre The American Shakespeare Festival The Fool National Theatre Studio Edward Bond/Royal Court Theatre Over Gardens Out* Look Back in Anger Royal Court Theatre 76 Antigone John Osborne/Theatre Royal Bath Co-directed, Sophocles trans C.A. Small Change* Trypanis/Royal National Theatre 07 The Sleepers’ Den* Royal Court Theatre Royal Court Theatre Gaslight Venice Preserv’d Patrick Hamilton/Old Vic Theatre Founder Director of Thomas Otway/Royal National Theatre Riverside Studios 08 Fool for Love The Importance of 78 Sam Shepard/Royal National Theatre; Being Earnest The Cherry Orchard Royal Court Theatre Oscar Wilde/Theatre Royal Bath; Anton Chekhov/Riverside Studios Vaudeville Theatre 87 The Changeling Mean Tears* Small Change* Thomas Middleton and William Royal National Theatre Donmar Warehouse Rowley/Riverside Studios Bow Down, Down by the 09 79 Greenwood Side Semper Dowland/The Corridor Measure for Measure Harrison Birtwistle/ Harrison Birtwistle/ William Shakespeare/ Queen Elizabeth Hall Britten Studio, Snape Riverside Studios The Marriage of Figaro Another Door Closed* W A Mozart/Leeds Grand Theatre Theatre Royal Bath 88 10 Mrs Klein Hens Nicholas Wright/ Alia Bano/Riverside Studios Royal National Theatre The Aliens 89 Annie Barker/The Bush Theatre Juno and the Paycock Sean O’Casey/Lyric Hammersmith 11 The Breath of Life Key David Hare/Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield * Written by 12 Peter Gill A Provincial Life* National Theatre Wales Making Noise Quietly Robert Holman/Donmar Warehouse 05 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES A PROVINCIAL LIFE THE COMPANY Cast Other Parts 01 02 Played By Anyuta Ivanova Blagovo John Atkinson Kezia Burrows Luke Bridgeman Abigail Fitzgerald Maria Heledd Gwynn 03 Victorovna Dolzhikova Kristian Jenkins Jan Jones Alex Clatworthy Ryan Nolan Clare Parry Jones Prokofy Ian Phillips Richard Corgan John Redpath Liane Walters 04 Madame Azhogina John Williams Helen Griffin 05 Boris Ivanov Blagovo Lee Haven-Jones Victor Ivanov Dolzhikov Mark Lewis 07 06 Cleopatra Alexandrovna Poloznev Sara Lloyd-Gregory Ivan Mikhailovich Cheprakov John-Paul Macleod 09 Workman Liam Mansfield 08 10 Alexandr Pavlovich Poloznev Clive Merrison Old man/ Governor of the Province Kenneth Price Shopkeeper/Berlichev 12 Ieuan Rhys Misail 11 13 Alexandrovich Poloznev Nicholas Shaw Andrey Ivanov William Thomas Karpovna/Madame Mufke Menna Trussler 15 14 #NTW17 Photographs Share your Helen Maybanks / views and National Theatre Wales join the conversation about the show on twitter @ntwtweets A PROVINCIAL LIFE SPRING 2012 06 01 02 03 04 05 Kezia Burrows Alex Clatworthy Richard Corgan Helen Griffin Lee Haven-Jones Trained at RADA. Trained at the Guildhall Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre credits include: Clwyd Theatre Cymru Associate. School of Music & Drama, Theatre School. The Devil Inside Him (National Theatre Wales), Small Change, Shadow Of Theatre credits include: where she won the 2011 A Boy, acclaimed one-woman show Theatre credits include: Venice Preserved (Arcola), A Man For Michael Bryant Award. Theatre credits include: Caitlin (Sherman Cymru), Cymbeline Mary Stuart, Festen and Arcadia All Seasons, Kind Hearts & Coronets, Flowers From Tunisia (Torch), (Ludlow Festival). (Theatr Clwyd), Memory and Night To Kill A Mockingbird (PFT), The Must Fall (Theatr Clwyd/59E59 Theatre credits include: Taming Of The Shrew (Globe), Frozen Merchant of Venice (Creation), The (Sherman), It’s About Me (Hampstead), TV credits include: Theatre, NYC), The Pull of Negative Misanthrope, The Bald Prima Donna Sleeping Beauty (Birmingham Rep). Money, Science, Me (Everyman), Gravity (Traverse Theatre), Romeo a (London Rd), Much Ado About Nothing Coronation Street; Getting