Ruth Wilson to star in 24-hour play The Second Woman at the Young Vic for LIFT Festival

Ruth Wilson
1/38

Ruth Wilson’s return to the stage will give her more than a sense of deja vu: she’ll be performing the same scene repeatedly for twenty-four hours.

The award-winning actress will star in the UK premiere of The Second Woman, a show that fuses performance, video and film. One hundred different men are invited to star opposite Wilson, who will play ‘Virginia’ and perform the exact same scene over and over again.

Directed by Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, the show was first seen in Australia and will come to London as part of international performance festival LIFT. It will be staged at the Young Vic as a co-production with the theatre.

The Second Woman is inspired by John Cassavetes’ 1977 film Opening Night, and created by an all-female identifying and non-binary team. Together they use multiple cameras to mix and capture a performance examining gender and power dynamics in relationships.

March's best theatre - in pictures

1/11

Wilson said she was “absolutely thrilled, and a little scared” to be part of the performance. “I have a feeling that The Second Woman will challenge all norms of what it means to be actor and audience, to be performer and observer.”

The performance will take place on Friday 19 June, starting at 4pm, and conclude at 4pm on Saturday 20 June. Tickets for the entire event or timed intervals of the show will go on sale tomorrow at 3pm, with some available to buy at the Young Vic on the day of the performance; youngvic.org.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in