Natalie Dormer to star as ANNA KARENINA in upcoming Chichester Festival Theatre season
Photo credit: Seamus Ryan
It has been announced that Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games) will play the title role in Anna Karenina at Chichester Festival Theatre from 7-28 June.
Phillip Breen’s witty and sensual version of Tolstoy’s masterpiece - blending period dress with a contemporary tone - takes us into the hearts and minds of its conflicted, very human characters. A surprisingly funny, romantic and unforgettable portrait of infidelity, passion and the search for fulfilment.
Across the vast panorama of 19th-century Russia – from the glittering salons of Moscow and St Petersburg to its remote country estates – everyone is searching for answers in a society on the brink of collapse.
Anna Karenina, the beautiful wife of a powerful government official, dares to step outside the bounds of society to risk a dangerous and destructive love affair with the magnetic Count Vronsky.
Meanwhile, country landowner Levin is in pursuit of a new way to live and wrestling with his thwarted devotion to Kitty, who’s been left broken-hearted by Vronsky. Her sister Dolly struggles to reconcile constant child-bearing with her husband’s constant philandering.
Their dreams and despairs are mirrored in the tensions between individual and society, modernity and tradition, city and countryside, faith and doubt.
Natalie Dormer makes her Chichester debut as Anna, with David Oakes (Victoria, Vikings: Valhalla) also coming to Chichester for the first time as Levin.
The cast also includes Donna Berlin (Wicked) as Countess Vronskaya, Jonnie Broadbent (Much Ado About Nothing) as Stiva, Seamus Dillane (The Invention of Love, Richard II) as Vronsky, Tomiwa Edun (Romeo and Juliet, Trigger Point) as Karenin, Sandy Foster (Mr Turner, Fisherman’s Friends) as Countess Lydia, Ivan Ivashkin (Mission: Impossible) as Nikolai, Shalisha James-Davis (The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet) as Kitty, Anne Lacey (The Secret Garden, Shetland) as Agafya, Marcia Lecky (Coriolanus, Brian and Maggie) as Princess Scherbatskaya, Riad Richie (Casualty, Infamous) as Titus, and Naomi Sheldon (The Girlfriend, Witness for the Prosecution) as Dolly.
Also on the creative team are set designer Max Jones, costume designer Ruth Hall, lighting designer Anna Watson, composer Paddy Cunneen, sound designer Dyfan Jones, movement director Ayse Tashkiran, and casting director Helena Palmer CDG.