KEY POINTS:
He is one of British theatre's great hopes but has not directed for the stage on home turf since he left the Donmar after a decade in charge. Now Sam Mendes is being lured back after five years to direct some of the greatest works in the classical canon in a three-year transatlantic venture with Kevin Spacey's Old Vic in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.
The move is an artistic and diplomatic coup for Spacey, whose critics have long wanted him to concentrate on presenting the major plays for which the Old Vic theatre was once famed.
It reunites him with Mendes in a professional pairing which stretches back to his Oscar-winning performance in the director's multi-awards-winning 1999 screen debut, American Beauty.
And it should thrill British audiences by giving Stephen Dillane, a fine Hamlet for Peter Hall in 1994, a second stab at the title role next year, with Simon Russell Beale lined up to head the casts for 2009.
The collaborators will present a double-bill of classic works until at least 2010, in Brooklyn, at the Old Vic and in at least one other international venue, starting next year in the Piccolo Teatro, Milan.
Announcing the venture from New York yesterday, Mendes said he was looking forward to returning to the stage. "Weirdly, it will have been exactly five years since I directing something in London, which was never my intention," he said.
But he and his wife, actress Kate Winslet, have children with whom he wanted to spend some time so he had done only one film, Jarhead, and one play, The Vertical Hour by David Hare in New York, since departing the Donmar in 2003.
The idea of an international collaboration has been in the air since then. When his final productions, Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night transferred to the Brooklyn Academy, Joseph Melillo, its executive producer, suggested Mendes should form a company to present regular classical performances. At the same time, Spacey, who became artistic director of the Old Vic in 2003, also talked to Mendes about working there.
Mendes joked: "I've been relishing the past four years because before that it was always about me trying to persuade Kevin. Suddenly the boot was on the other foot so I was stringing it out for as long as I could and, finally, I gave in.
"I'm a creator who enjoys working within the company environment. It's why I loved running the Donmar. I seek that sustenance. I really wanted to make a commitment to working with a company with longer rehearsal periods and not have the pressure of commercial casting. I wanted to work with people I have working relationships with."
Simon Russell Beale has worked on six Mendes productions, including his farewell season at the Donmar, while Dillane starred in Mendes' award-winning production of Stoppard's The Real Thing.
Mendes has long wanted to do Hamlet, and Dillane was looking forward to trying it again. "He feels he flung himself with youthful vigour at the role and understood about as much as you can the first time you have a go at it, given the exigences of a West End run."
Dillane will also appear as Prospero in The Tempest next year and in 2009, Simon Russell Beale will play Leontes in The Winter's Tale and Lopakhin in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
The third season is yet to be confirmed, but Spacey could well act in it. "It's difficult to know what my schedule will be in 2012, but my intention is that, of course, I will join the company," he said.
American and British casting will be shared 50-50 in a deal agreed by the acting union Equity in both countries.
Mendes said: "This is an attempt at creating a unified, sympathetic company of English and American stage actors, not movie actors, and to try to find a company aesthetic which is consistent across six enormous and great plays. In that sense it's the biggest commitment I've made either to film or theatre since I took on the Donmar."
Spacey said that after 30 years of receiving other people's productions, the Old Vic company had now rebuilt a loyal following which he believed would now be willing to try this kind of "complicated, challenging repertoire".
He added: "It has been my hope since I became artistic director of the Old Vic that the work we do in London should have an international life, and, particularly, a presence in New York."
- INDEPENDENT
