Theater
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
“Water, water everywhere.” Fiona Shaw delivers a masterful performance of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s eerie tale of penance paid on the high seas. Like an actor possessed, the fiery Shaw inhabits the very marrow of this epic 18th-century poem, bounding across the stage while transforming Coleridge’s luminous language into an exhilarating lived experience.
In the icy Antarctic, a ship is lost at sea. And when a mariner shoots a bird thought to be the crew’s salvation, his macabre, guilt-inducing fate—the veritable “albatross around the neck”—is decided. Accompanied by dancer Daniel Hay Gordon, who offers interpretive counterpoint throughout, Shaw skirts a whirlpool, braves a crew of corpses, and rolls Death’s dice with poetic abandon, taking us to hell and back.
Composed by Mel Mercier
Lighting design by Jean Kalman and Mike Gunning
Set design by Chloe Obolensky
Choreography by Kim Brandstrup


The 2013 Next Wave Festival showcases the very best in contemporary performance, plus artist talks, storytelling, visual art, and film.

Fiona Shaw is an award-winning Irish actress and theater director.