Jenufa
by Gabriela Preissova
adapted by Timberlake Wertenabker
directed by Irina Brown
The Program in Performing Arts Theater Program will hold an open rehearsal for this new adaptation of Jenufa on Tuesday March 21, 2006 at 6:00pm in the Gonda Theatre of the Royden B. Davis Performing Arts Center as part of a developmental workshop with the Adaptor and Director, who are both British artists. The rehearsal will feature professional and student actors who have been working with Ms. Wertenbaker on this new adaptation. The rehearsal will be followed by a discussion and reception with internationally acclaimed playwright Timberlake Werternbaker, in residence at Georgetown this year, Director Irina Brown, Staff Director at the National Theatre in England, and Choreographer Christopher Siversten, moderated by Maya Roth, the Artistic Director of the Davis Performing Arts Center.
Jenufa, although best known as an opera by Leos Janacek, was originally a controversial play written by Gabriela Priessova. The story tells a moving and horrifying tale of love, betrayal, murder and forgiveness. Jenufa is a young girl who falls in love with Steva, a man of whom her proud stepmother disapproves. Steva is told he must wait a year before he can marry Jenufa, although, unbeknownst to her stepmother, the girl is already pregnant with his child. Jenufa must secretly give birth to the child and endure what is to come.
Ms. Wertenbaker, currently the Davis Visiting Professor in Theater at Georgetown University, was commissioned to write an adaptation of this play for the Sphinx Company in London. Timberlake Wertenbaker grew up in the Basque Country in Southwest France and has written, translated and adapted many plays including Our Country's Good the winner of the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best New Foreign Play, and 6 Tony nominations and Galileo's Daughter. Ms. Wertenbaker was a resident writer with Shared Experience in 1983 and at the Royal Court in 1984-85. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Irina Brown was commissioned to direct Jenufa and has worked with Ms. Wertenbaker to refine the script for a modern audience. Ms. Brown was born and educated in Russia where she began her work as an assistant director to Yuri Lubimov. Since 1978 she has been living and working in Britain where she has established herself as a prominent theater director. In addition, she is the senior lecturer in acting at Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre and visiting professor at the British-American Drama Academy. She will bring with her to Washington Christopher Sivertsen, originally from Norway, and a member of the world-renowned Polish physical theatre group, "Song of the Goat". He also has his own theatre group in Sweden and has worked regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Admission is free and spaces will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.
