Lorca, Strindberg & Theatre de Complicite Added to National Season

The National Theatre has added three new productions to its 2004-2005 season. The respected company will present Theatre de Complicite's A Minute Too Late, August Strindberg's A Dream Play and Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernada Alba as part of its line-up.

A Minute Too Late will run at the Lyttelton Theatre beginning January 20. First created by Theatre de Complicite 21 years ago, it's a play about death, inspired by funeral parlours, Bow Cemetery and personal experience. Complicite members Josef Houben, Simon McBurney and Marcello Magni will appear.

The National is also presenting a new version of A Dream Play by Caryl Churchill. A Dream Play centers on a dream about a girl from another world who comes to find out why people complain so much. Directed by Katie Mitchell, the cast of the production will include Sean Jackson, Charlotte Roach, Dominic Rowan, Justin Salinger, Susie Trayling and Angus Wright. A Dream Play is scheduled to run at the Cottesloe Theatre from February 4 to March 29.

Also on the schedule is a new version of The House of Bernada Alba, adapted by David Hare. Centering on five unmarried sisters in a fatherless household, Federico Garcia Lorca's classic play tells how passion overrides the social rules which bind the women, who ultimately rebel against their matriarch, the tyrannical Bernarda Alba. Penelope Wilton is set to star as Bernada Alba and Howard Davies will direct the production, scheduled to run at the Lyttelton Theatre March 5 through April 30.

The National Theatre season also includes Alan Bennett's The History Boys, Nikolai Erdman's The Mandate, Tropicana, Sam Shepard's Buried Child, Rebecca Lenkiewicz' The Night Season, Primo adapted by Antony Sher from Primo Levi's If This Is A Man, His Dark Materials based on novels by Philip Pullman and Kwame Kwei-Armah's Fix Up.