Atom Egoyan to direct play for Canadian Stage in 2012

Atom Egoyan to direct play for Canadian Stage in 2012

Atom Egoyan (Image: Karon Liu)

The Canadian Stage Company recently announced its 2011–2012 season, with a surprising addition to its productions: Toronto filmmaker Atom Egoyan is set to direct his wife, Arsinée Khanjian, in Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender next January. Egoyan took the entire year off to mount the production, which explores the motivations of a despotic general through his domestic relationships. Although Khanjian and Egoyan have worked on several films together in the past, this is their first theatrical collaboration.

Egoyan feels Cruel and Tender is a timely production that speaks to the current international political climate. “This is a wonderful play, which is incredibly timely because it’s about the disposing of a tyrant,” he told the Post’s Ampersand blog. “We see this disposing not from external forces, his bloody and horrific conquests, but from within the family structure itself, from the perspective of his son, his wife, his slave lover, his confidante.”

Egoyan’s last work for a Toronto stage was directing the Canadian Opera Company’s Die Walküre in 2006. Joining Egoygan’s play in Canadian Stage’s 2011 –2012 season is The Test (a dark comedy about politics and paternity directed by Jason Byrne and starring Eric Peterson, Liisa Repo-Martell and Philip Riccio) and New York hit real-estate comedy Clybourne Park.

2011–12 season [Canadian Stage]
• Atom Egoyan to direct play for Canadian Stage [The Ampersand]
Canadian Stage season to cross theatre disciplines [CBC News]
Canstage lures Atom Egoyan back to the stage [Globe and Mail]