Robert Icke
| Robert Icke | |
|---|---|
| Born | Stockton-on-Tees |
| Occupation | Writer, director |
| Nationality | English |
| Notable works |
Oresteia Uncle Vanya 1984 |
| Notable awards | Olivier Award, Evening Standard Award, Critics' Circle, UK Theatre Awards |
| Website | |
| www.roberticke.com | |
Robert Icke is an English writer and theatre director. Born in Stockton-on-Tees to a non-theatrical family, he was taken to see a production of Richard III starring Kenneth Branagh as a teenager, which inspired him to take up writing and directing. [1] He is perhaps most known for his productions of classic texts, where he searches for a return 'to the impulse of the original play, to clear away the accumulated dust of its performance history. So much of great drama was profoundly troubling when it was first done. The word radical actually means to go back to the root. They rioted at Ibsen’s A Doll’s House...Audiences shouldn’t be allowed to feel nothing.’ [2]
His work, according to Megan Vaughan, 'is a sign that the UK’s once stuffy middle-class theatre culture is waking up to more exciting and less prescriptive techniques.'[3]
He began his career as Artistic Director of the Arden Theatre Company (2003-2007), followed by a stint at the Swan Theatre Company (2005-2008). Between 2010 and 2013, he was Associate Director at Rupert Goold's company Headlong. He is now Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre.[4]
Awards
- Oresteia won 'Best Director' at the Olivier Awards 2016, the Critics Circle Theatre Awards and the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2015.
- 1984 won 'Best Director at the UK Theatre Awards 2014, 'Best Director' at the Liverpool Arts Awards 2013, and was nominated for 'Best New Play' at the 2014 Olivier Awards.
Selected credits
- Hamlet by Shakespeare starring Andrew Scott, Almeida Theatre, 2017
- Mary Stuart by Schiller (adapted by Robert Icke) starring Lia Williams and Juliet Stevenson, Almeida Theatre, 2016
- The Red Barn by Simenon (adapted by David Hare), National Theatre, 2016
- Uncle Vanya by Chekhov (adapted by Robert Icke), Almeida Theatre, 2016
- Oresteia by Aeschylus (adapted by Robert Icke), Almeida Theatre, 2015
- The Fever by Wallace Shawn, Almeida Theatre (site-specific), 2015
- Mr Burns by Anne Washburn, Almeida Theatre, 2014
- 1984 by George Orwell, devised with Duncan Macmillan, UK and World Tours, Almeida, West End, 2013-2016
- The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, Liverpool Playhouse, 2012
- Boys by Ella Hickson, Headlong, Soho Theatre, 2012
- Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, Headlong, UK Tour, 2012
- Decade, devised with Rupert Goold, Headlong, St Katharine Docks, 2011