Arrows & Traps Theatre Company bring Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to life

Helen Edmundson has translated a thousand pages, with nearly that many characters, into an intimate chamber drama to appear at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre in March.

Anna Karenina tells the story of the wife of a provincial governor, who revolts against a superficial existence of compromise and embarks on a scandalous affair with a charming officer Count Vronsky. As Anna is brought to the brink of destruction, she must finally decide whom she is living for.

Edmundson’s plays include The Clearing (Bush Theatre), Mother Teresa is Dead (Royal Court), Mary Shelley (Shared Experience at The Tricycle and on tour), and The Heresy of Love (Royal Shakespeare Company).

Her other work includes Coram Boy (National Theatre and on Broadway), a new version of Calderon’s Life is a Dream (The Donmar), a musical adaptation of Swallows and Amazons, written with composer Neil Hannon, (Bristol Old Vic, West End and on tour) and Thérèse Raquin (Bath Theatre Royal and on Broadway).

Her film adaptation of An Inspector Calls was seen on BBC television in 2015 and her adaptation of Thérèse Raquin was staged on Broadway this Autumn, starring Keira Knightley.

Arrows & Traps Theatre Company find a bold, alternative and exciting take on Shakespeare and other classic texts through analysis and bare-bones rehearsal and experimentation.

Anna Karenina runs at the Brockley Jack Theatre from 15 March to 2 April 2016