The Old Vic today gives a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2018 at The Old Vic during its bicentenary.
The Divide, a new play by Alan Ayckbourn, will open at The Old Vic on 3 February 2018 with previews from 30 January 2018, following its premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival this summer.
The Divide is a tale that unflinchingly explores a dystopian society of repression, insurrection and forbidden love. The show, presented in two parts, is directed by Annabel Bolton, an Associate Director of The Old Vic.
The Divide is set in the aftermath of a deadly contagion which, a century from now, has decimated the English population and rendered contact between men and women fatal. Under the dictates of an elusive Preacher, an unthinkable solution is enforced. Separated by the Divide, the adult survivors are segregated by gender, as men wear white as a mark of their purity, and women – still infected – are clothed in black as a sign of their sin.
Brother and sister Elihu (Jake Davies) and Soween (Erin Doherty) grow up learning the ways of their tightly controlled society. As they begin to glimpse the cracks in the system, Elihu falls for Giella (Weruche Opia), the daughter of two radical mothers, risking fatal disease and threatening to ignite a bloody revolution. The Divide is a vision of a dystopian future defined by brutal repression and forbidden love.
The Divide runs at the King’s Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival over a two-week run (8 August to 20 August 2017) before opening at The Old Vic in January 2018. The Old Vic has a long history with the International Festival, having performed at the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947 and many times in the following decade. This collaboration with EIF is the first of several brokered by The Old Vic to mark the bicentenary of the theatre in 2018.
