Edinburgh Int'l Fest Opens With Measure For Measure Aug. 11 | Playbill

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News Edinburgh Int'l Fest Opens With Measure For Measure Aug. 11 Shakespeare's Measure For Measure opens the theatre portion of the 50th Edinburgh International Festival, Aug. 11 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Shakespeare's Measure For Measure opens the theatre portion of the 50th Edinburgh International Festival, Aug. 11 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Stephane Braunschweig makes his English language directorial debut with Measure For Measure, staged by the Nottingham Playhouse. Acclaimed for his French productions of The Winter's Tale, Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Janacek's Jenufa, Braunschweig will also design this tragicomedy, full of twists, contradictions and double meanings. Alexandre de Dardel is assistant designer with lighting by Marion Hewlett and costumes by Thibault Vancraenenbroeck. Music is by Gualtiero Dazzi. The production runs through Aug. 26.

The festival, which also includes opera, dance and music, is celebrating its 50th birthday with re creations of festival premieres and major events of the last 50 years. T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, which world premiered at the festival in 1949 with Alec Guinness and Irene Worth, will run Aug. 25-30, performed by the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company under the direction of Philip Franks. With the Cocktail Party, Eliot interweaves plots of infidelity, estrangement, frustration and incompatibility, culminating in a demonstration of love and its responsibilities.

The Salzburg Festival brings its production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to Edinburgh Aug. 28-30. Performed in German with English supertitles, The Cherry Orchard is directed by Peter Stein, who last year directed Uncle Vanya in Edinburgh. In the cast are Jutta Lampe, Peter Simonischek, Daniel Friedrich, Dorte Lyssewski, Dorothee Hartinger, Annette Paulmann, Elke Petri, Werner Rehm, Gotz Schubert, Roland Schafer, Branko Samarovski and Sven-Eric Bechtolf. Sets are by Karl-Ernst Herrmann, costumes by Moidele Bickel, lighting by Wolfgang Gobbel and music by Peter Fischer.

From Barcelona, Spain comes Blinded By Love (Cegada de Amor), written and directed by Jordi Milan. An orphaned young girl falls madly in love with a handsome student, is blinded in a freak accident and flees her lover who she believes is pitying her. Love prevails in this fusion of theatre, film, music and dance, which has played for nearly three years in Barcelona and Madrid. Performed in Spanish with English supertitles, Blinded By Love runs Aug. 12 23. New this year is the Gateway Theatre Season, presenting 3 young companies in a studio theatre setting. Partition, by Harwant Bains, explores the legacy of partition in today's Asian community in Britain. Directed by Kristine Landon-Smith and designed by Sue Mayes with lighting by Paul Taylor. This world-premiere by the Tamasha Theatre Company runs Aug. 11 18.

Independent film-maker Zhang Yuan writes and directs his first stage play, East Palace, West Palace (Dong Gong, Xi Gong), Aug. 21-23. A young homosexual writer tells the story of his life to his interlocutor after his arrest in Tiananmen Square, also known as East Palace and West Palace. Performed in Mandarin with English supertitles.

Suspect Culture presents the world premiere of Timeless, the story of four people who reveal to the audience their intertwined past, present and future lives through three encounters in a cafe. Text by David Grieg, music by Nick Powell and designed by Ian Scott. Devised and directed by Graham Eatough, Timeless runs Aug. 27-30.

For Edinburgh International Festival ticket information, please call +44 (0) 131 473 200.

--By Laura MacDonald

 
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