Sunday, April 10, 2011
ANNA KARENINA REHEARSALS BEGIN
Rehearsals start tomorrow and the show opens in Dundee on May 23rd.
This show is so close to my heart.
I wrote it some time in the 1990's for the Shefield Crucible, but the artistic director who commissioned it resigned before it was performed.
And then it lay untouched for years, until Muriel Romanes directed it at Queen Margaret Univeristy College and then at the Royal Lyceum in 2005.
Earlier this year, I saw a production of it by students of Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy, and it touched me deeply.
It reminded me of how the figure of Levin represented all our early hopes to live an alternative life, one closer to nature and the earth; the figure of Anna herself expressed my fears of what would happen to me if I defied my society and lived openly as a transsexual.
And all those years when no-one would touch the play, it somehow became a symbol of all my frustrations in my professional life; and all my doubts about the value of my work.
It was an amazing vindication to see it at QMUC, then at the Lyceum. As it is to know it's happening again now.
Dundee Rep's work is fabulously good. I can't wait to see it.
This show is so close to my heart.
I wrote it some time in the 1990's for the Shefield Crucible, but the artistic director who commissioned it resigned before it was performed.
And then it lay untouched for years, until Muriel Romanes directed it at Queen Margaret Univeristy College and then at the Royal Lyceum in 2005.
Earlier this year, I saw a production of it by students of Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy, and it touched me deeply.
It reminded me of how the figure of Levin represented all our early hopes to live an alternative life, one closer to nature and the earth; the figure of Anna herself expressed my fears of what would happen to me if I defied my society and lived openly as a transsexual.
And all those years when no-one would touch the play, it somehow became a symbol of all my frustrations in my professional life; and all my doubts about the value of my work.
It was an amazing vindication to see it at QMUC, then at the Lyceum. As it is to know it's happening again now.
Dundee Rep's work is fabulously good. I can't wait to see it.
Labels: Anna Karenina
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