The trajectory of “star” directors is very interesting. A few rare ones seem to burst fully-formed upon the scene, like Sam Mendes who served only a brief Chichester Festival Theatre apprenticeship before moving straight into the West End, and thence on to the Donmar Warehouse, National Theatre, Broadway and Hollywood, in turn. Then there are those who serve a slower but no less dazzling apprenticeship, like Stephen Daldry who ignited his career at the tiny Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, was picked up by the National for An Inspector Calls and shot straight to the Royal Court (even though he’d not actually worked there), before becoming an international player of films and now a megamusical of one of those films, Billy Elliot.
But a new star has lately been emerging from the shadows of the Royal Court and latterly the RSC, Dominic Cooke, who has gone about his way far more quietly but ultimately persuasively enough to find himself now about to take over the Royal Court’s artistic reigns. And though his commercial West End credits have hitherto been confined to bringing Holly Hunter to the stage in By the Bog of Cats, he is fast turning into the hottest director around, equally adept at the classics as he is at new plays.
While his ravishing Stratford-upon-Avon revival of As You Like It transferred to the Novello, he was simultaneously staging a new production for the RSC of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Now that production has transferred to the West End’s Gielgud, at exactly the same time as the RSC’s New Writing season that he curated has moved to Soho Theatre. His own directorial contribution is Postcards from America, a pair of bracing new plays from the US. But if he is feeling newly ubiquitous, he’s own profile has hitherto been rather low. The new spotlight that is being thrust upon him now, however, will stand him in good stead when he’s under the glare of expectation that will await his arrival at the Royal Court.
