Abstract

In this Affective Encounters roundtable discussion, three directors — Corinne Jaber, Atri Banerjee, and Andrew Quick — will reflect on their methods for bringing theatregoers into and out of states of psychological unease.

Talking first about their experiences directing the unsettling and confrontational aspects of Shakespeare’s works, the three theatremakers will turn to several of their other productions and then to a more general discussion of the properties of dramatic form which most engage, excite, upset, and disconcert us all.

The discussion between the three will then open up to an audience Q&A.

All welcome.

More about the directors:

Corinne Jaber is an internationally active dramatist who trained under Monika Pagneux and Philip Gaulier in Paris. She performed in Peter Brook’s Mahabharata and in Irina Brook’s Beast on the Moon, and has recently returned to the Mahabharata via Karthika Nair’s Until the Lions: Corinne’s theatrical adaptation of this piece is currently in development.

Corinne has worked extensively as a director and as a director of Shakespeare: her production of Love’s Labour’s Lost was staged in Kabul in 2005, and in 2012 she worked with the same troupe on a Dari Persian production of Comedy of Errors which was staged at the Globe Theatre as part of that year’s ‘Globe to Globe Festival’. This production was the subject of the BBC documentary Shakespeare from Kabul.

Corinne’s other projects have included Munich Medea (a play which ‘burrowed into the abilities of theater and storytelling to manipulate and obscure, as well as illuminate and process, harrowing truths’; 2024), In Transit (written when Corinne ‘found herself in Beirut as the city trembled and pager devices exploded; a moment of personal and political upheaval that demanded to be transformed into story’; 2025) and, with Amir Nizar Zuabi, Oh My Sweet Land (staged at the Young Vic in 2014, and which explored ‘the crisis in Syria through the stories of its [then] 2 million refugees’.)

Atri Banerjee is the Artistic Lead at the Gate Theatre, where he has directed Scenes for the Climate Era and This Room, Now. In 2023 he directed a touring production of Julius Caesar for the RSC which utilised, in each venue, a different chorus drawn from the local community. Atri has also directed at the Almeida (Look Back in Anger) and at the Royal Exchange (productions included Hobson’s Choice, The Glass Menagerie and Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s SHED: Exploded View.) His Bush Theatre production of HARM was adapted for film and screened by BBC 4 in 2021.

Atri won Best Director at The Stage Debut Awards in 2019, and in 2022 was listed in The Stage 25 as ‘one to watch’. He studied English at Cambridge and on the MFA Theatre Directing course at Birkbeck.

Andrew Quick is the co-founder and co-artistic director for imitating the dog, a company which fuses live performance with digital technology, creating ‘spectacular, innovative theatre, as dramatically forceful and thought-provoking as it is entertaining’ (Guardian). Their current project, an adaptation of War of the Worlds, appears at the Cambridge Arts Theatre between 29th April and 2nd May. Previous productions include a Macbeth named by The Times and The Guardian as one of the best live events to attend in 2023, and a production of Lear set in a psychiatric hospital and mounted at the Teatro de la Universidad Catolica in Chile, starring Hugo Medina. imitating the dog have worked on a wide variety of adaptations (Dracula; Frankenstein; Heart of Darkness) and installations; Andrew has published research on several other experimental companies including Forced Entertainment and the Wooster Group.