ABSTRACT
This introduction offers an overview of Katie Mitchell’s career, paying special attention to its ‘early turns’: her graduation from Oxford University through to her first professional work at the RSC, with transformative experiences in Europe – funded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust – in between. It explores the ways in which Mitchell’s work navigates national identities and styles, tangling the British text-bound tradition with something more European. Pina Bausch’s Nelken (1982) is identified as a particular source of inspiration, as is the time Mitchell spent with Gardzienice in Poland, and the work of Lev Dodin, whom Mitchell observed in Russia. The introduction also examines the vexed critical reception of Mitchell’s work in the UK, particularly concerning her productions under Nicholas Hytner’s tenure at the National Theatre. Comparisons are drawn between Mitchell’s uneasy relationship with Shakespeare and the fate of her contemporary, Emma Rice, who worked as movement director on Mitchell’s early RSC productions.
