Marivaux’s The Dispute now in rehearsal and previews from 24 February 1999.

Final casting has just been completed for the RSC and The Lyric Hammersmith’s co-production of Marivaux’s rarely staged The Dispute. The company is Adjoa Andoh (Carise), Hayley Carmichael (Egle), Martin Freeman (Azor), John Padden (Mesrin), Charlotte Randle (Adine), Neil Reidman (Mesrou), Crispin Redman (Prince), Chris Robson (Meslis), Jusith Scott (Hermiane) and Kathleen Tozer (Dina).

Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Neil Bartlett directs his new translation of The Dispute. Written by Marivaux in 1744, The Dispute was considered unstageable in his lifetime. It is now regarded as one of his masterpieces. The production will unite RSC’s expertise in staging classical theatre with Neil Bartlett’s provocative theatrical vision.

A dark, erotic philosophical comedy revolving around the ‘dispute’ of the title, The Dispute endeavours to discover which sex committed the first infidelity. A prince persuades his fiancée to watch the playing out a cruel experiment: four wild children, two boys and two girls, who have been reared in isolation since birth, are released into a garden to see who will sin first.

Neil Bartlett has previously translated Marivaux’s The Game Of Love And Chance for the Royal National Theatre. His other translations of classical French drama include Racine’s Berenice, Moliere’s The School For Wives and The Misanthrope. Productions he has directed at the Lyric Hammersmith include acclaimed rediscoveries of Shaw, Wilde, Maugham, Genet and most recently Terence Rattigan’s Cause Celebre.