Why Stage Chekhov Now? Panel Discussion with Katie Mitchell & Yana Ross

Directors Katie Mitchell and Yana Ross will discuss their recent productions of Chekhov for major German theatres: The Cherry Orchard at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus (2022) and Ivanov at the Berliner Ensemble (2023). The discussion of Mitchell and Ross’ approaches to directing and adaptation will conclude with a response from Dan Rebellato on the wider historical and contemporary contexts of Naturalism that is relevant for these productions.

In a multimedia theatre experiment consisting of live film, radio play, video installation, performance, and concert, Katie Mitchell undertakes a change of perspective and makes the trees of the Cherry Orchard the starting point of her production. The radical new staging demonstrates the need for humans to reorient their worldview to the threat to the existential ecosystem of our planet; this also prompts questions embedded in the play about living on credit at another’s expense.

Yana Ross’ production for the BE is set in a pleasure-seeking society in which Ivanov avoids having to face his constant undermining of his own moral aspirations and his inability to take control of his life. Ross further developed her working methods for this production that include a subtle interweaving of canonical texts with contemporary discourses and the stories of her cast. Both productions radically rewrite Chekhov’s texts to address some of the major political questions of the twenty-first century.

Biographies

Katie Mitchell is a British director who has worked across Europe in both theatre and opera and is well known for her development of ‘live cinema’. She has been an Associate Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, and Royal Court. Other theatres that have produced her work include Shaubühne (Berlin), Hamburg Shauspielhaus, Toneelgroep (Amsterdam), Bouffe du Nord (Paris), Vienna Burgtheater, as well as the Young Vic and Barbican in London. Her opera productions have been staged in the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Berlin and Bavarian State Operas, Dutch National Opera, Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals, and Paris’ Opéra-Comique. Her handbook, The Director’s Craft, is one of the bestselling and most influential titles on theatre directing, and in 2009 she was awarded an OBE for services to drama. Mitchell is Professor of Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Yana Ross is a cultural nomad — since the age of 5 she has been traveling through a vast variety of countries and cultures, absorbing experiences, and adapting to various conditions of life and work. Her artistic passion is digging deep into a foreign culture to unveil a taboo subject. She then explores the themes in collaborative and improvisational methods often based on classical texts but skewed to transmit only the main subject of research. Ross is the first female director to work on legendary Volksbühne stage in Berlin (Macbeth 2008) and first and still the only female director who won the Golden Cross for best performance in Lithuania (2014, 2019). She was part of the artistic team at Schauspielhaus Zurich where during her 3-year tenure she shaped and navigated a state institution together with another seven artists. In 2023, she embarked on a long-term collaboration with Berliner Ensemble.

Dan Rebellato is Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London and has published widely on contemporary British theatre. His books include 1956 and All That, Theatre & Globalization, The Suspect Culture Book, and Modern British Playwriting 2000-2009. He is co-editor of Contemporary European Theatre Directors, Contemporary European Playwrights, The Cambridge Companion to British Playwriting since 1945, The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre since 1945 and the Theatre & series for Palgrave. He is currently working on a book about nineteenth-century Naturalist theatre. He has adapted work by John Wyndham, Nikolai Gogol, Douglas Coupland, Alfred de Musset and Eugene Ionesco for radio and was lead writer on Radio 4’s epic, award-winning adaptation of Emile Zola’s 20-volume novel sequence under the title Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money.

Photo: Ivanov, dir by Yana Ross, Berliner Ensemble (2023). Photograph by Matthias Horn.

Event Venue

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 62-64 Eton Avenue, London, United Kingdom