Actors will meet their co-star for the first time on stage in the Gate Theatre’s upcoming production of Dear Elizabeth.
Sarah Ruhl’s two-hander play will star a different pair every performance, from a cast including Tamsin Greig, Jade Anouka, Travis Alabanza, Tim Crouch and Alex Jennings, who will meet each other, the audience and the story on the night.
The story follows Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, who exchanged 400 letters over their lifetime, exploring their unconventional relationship across the continents, decades and political changes.
Director Ellen McDougall says: “One of the reasons this play feels so powerful is that it presents the idea that we can have intimate, intense relationships that resist easy definition. Robert and Elizabeth's relationship lived somewhere between a romance and a friendship and I want this piece to celebrate intimate relationships in all their forms.
“For this reason, being able to present a multiplicity of voices telling this story - from performers, many of whom are writers, poets, artists, themselves, feels really exciting. The performers won't know how the story ends: they will discover it with the audience. The idea of reaching out into the unknown, and our need for one another, feels very prescient.”
Further casting will be announced in the new year.
Dear Elizabeth will run from January 17-February 9, gatetheatre.co.uk
