For its third show of its 30th anniversary season, Theatre for a New Audience will present the New York premiere of C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord production of Love Is My Sin, the sonnets of William Shakespeare adapted by Peter Brook and performed by his wife, Natasha Parry and Michael Pennington.
Love Is My Sin, in which two lovers trace a magnificent, life-embracing arc of jealousy, guilt, adoration and anguish in Shakespeare's sonnets, begins previews Thursday, March 25, at 8:00pm, opens Thursday, April 1, at 7:00pm for a run through April 17 at The Duke on 42nd StreetSM, a New 42nd Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street.
Franck Krawczyk plays the music of Louis Couperin (1626-1661) on keyboard and accordion. Lighting is designed by Philippe Vialatte.
Last season, Peter Brook directed the C.I.C.T./ Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord's production of The Grand Inquisitor featuring Bruce Myers adapted from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov by Marie-Hél ne Estienne. The production was presented by Theatre for a New Audience and New York Theatre Workshop.
Love Is My Sin premiered in Paris at Bouffes du Nord April, 2009. The first series of performances were played by Natasha Parry and Bruce Myers. Subsequent to an engagement for Bruce Myers at the National Theatre in London a second successful European tour brought the outstanding Shakespeare actor Michael Pennington into the cast. We are very happy to announce that it is this fine actor Michael Pennington well known to American audiences who will be playing with Natasha Parry at The Duke on 42nd StreetSM.
Love Is My Sin features thirty-one sonnets chosen by Mr. Brook. To quote from Peter Brook: "To choose between 154 sonnets, I needed to find a dramatic continuity and was guided by the hidden tensions that arise in a relationship between two people. Love Is My Sin allows us to penetrate into Shakespeare's own, most secret life. It is his private diary, in which we find his intimate questions, his jealousy, his passions, his guilt, his despair. Above all, he searches to discover for himself the deep meaning of being attracted by a man, by a woman or even by the act of writing itself. This is neither a play nor a poetry recital. It catches the actors in human relationships. Then, at the very end, they become speakers for Shakespeare himself who wrote prophetically that his verse is stronger than time and will last forever."
Peter Brook
Peter Brook was born in London in 1925. He directed his first play there in 1943. He then went on to direct over 70 productions in London, Paris, and New York. His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Love's Labour's Lost (1946), Measure for Measure (1950), Titus Andronicus (1955), King Lear (1962), Marat/Sade (1964), US (1966), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970) and Antony and Cleopatra (1978).
In 1971, he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris and in 1974, opened its permanent base in Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. There, he directed Timon of Athens, The Ik, Ubu aux Bouffes, Conference of the Birds, L'O's, The Cherry Orchard, The Mahabharata, Woza Albert!, The Tempest, The Man Who, Qui est l ?, Ô! les Beaux Jours, Je suis un Phénom ne, Le Costume, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Far Away, La Mort de Krishna, Ta Main dans la Mienne, Tierno Bokar, Sizwe Banzi est mort and Fragments - many of these performing in both French and English.
In opera, he directed La Boh me, Boris Godounov, The Olympians, Salomé and Le Nozze de Figaro at Covent Garden; Faust and Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York; La Tragédie de Carmen and Impressions of Pelleas, at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris and Don Giovanni for Aix en Provence Festival.
Mr. Brook's autobiography, Threads of Time, was published in 1998 and joins other titles including The Empty Space (1968) - translated into over 15 languages, The Shifting Point (1987), Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare (2002), and There are No Secrets (1993).
