Photo Flash: First Look at the National Theatre's THE SEVEN STREAMS OF THE RIVER OTA

By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 02, 2020

First staged at The National Theatre in 1996, Robert Lepage's masterpiece returns to London for just nine performances. Presented as part of a world tour, this new staging marks 75 years since the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. Tracing survivors and their descendants across five decades, this giant theatrical journey through time and space explores the way in which a few kilograms of uranium falling on Japan changed the course of human history.

Check out photos from the production below.

The text is by members of the Ex Machina company including Éric Bernier, Gérard Bibeau, Normand Bissonnette, Rebecca Blankenship, Marie Brassard, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Normand Daneau, Richard Fréchette, Marie Gignac, Patrick Goyette, Robert Lepage, Macha Limonchik and Ghislaine Vincent.

Cast are Rebecca Blankenship, Lorraine Côté, Christian Essiambre, Richard Fréchette, Tetsuya Kudaka, Myriam Leblanc, Umihiko Miya, Audrée Southière, Philippe Thibault-Denis and Donna Yamamoto.

Director and designer Robert Lepage, creative director Steve Blanchet, dramaturg Gérard Bibeau, music and sound design by Michel F. Côté, original set design by Carl Fillion, set designer for the adaptation Ariane Sauvé, lighting design by Sonoyo Nishikawa, images designer Keven Dubois, costumes designer Virginie Leclerc and properties designer Claudia Gendreau.

A co-production with Chekhov International Theatre Festival, Moscow, The National Theatre, London, and Le Diamant, Québec.

Photo Credit: Elias Djemil-Matassov