Helena Kaut-Howson
British theatre director
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Helena Kaut-Howson (born 1940) is a Polish-born British theatre director.
Early life and education
Helena Kaut-Howson was born (as Helena Kaut) in Lviv, a Polish city which was recently forcibly incorporated into Soviet Union.[1] She is a child Holocaust survivor. She grew up in Wrocław, Poland.[1] Her training as a director was first at the Polish State Theatre School and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[2]
Career
Kaut-Howson originally worked as an actor in the 1950s, at the Jewish Theatre, Warsaw.[3] She had to leave Poland after marrying a British man who was the son of an admiral working for NATO, and came to the United Kingdom then.[1] She worked in the 1960s in direction at the Royal Court Theatre.[3] She has directed in Israel at the Jerusalem Community Theatre, the Habima Theatre and Cameri Theater.[3] Other work as director outside the UK includes at Monument-National in Canada and the Gate Theatre in Dublin.[3] She has also worked with Scena Polska UK at the Polish Social and Cultural Association in London.[4][5]
Kaut-Howson was artistic director of Theatr Clwyd in Wales between 1992 and 1995.[3][6] The Board decided not to renew her contract, despite the financial and critical success Clwyd had under her leadership.[7]
There was disagreement between Kaut-Howson and the theatre management about her production of The Miser at the Royal Exchange, Manchester in 2009.[8]
Kaut-Howson has taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.[3]
Some of the plays she has directed are her own adaptations.[3] This includes Faithful Ruslan, which she adapted from the book by Georgi Vladimov.[9][10]
Themes
Although Kaut-Howson does not call herself a feminist, her productions are often identified as feminist.[2][11][12] In her production of King Lear at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, later transferring to the Young Vic, the part of King Lear was played by a woman, Kathryn Hunter, a decision which was called "controversial".[2][11][13][14]
Kaut-Howson values working with actors from the theatre company Complicité.[2] She believes that theatre is about a company performing, rather than individual actors.[2]
Kaut-Howson was instrumental in bringing the work of Bruno Schulz to the stage.[15][9]
Awards
- Peter Brook Open Space Award 1994 for Outstanding Body of Work at Theatr Clwyd[3]
- Liverpool Post and Echo Arts Award 1992 for Best Director (The Devils)[3]
- UK Theatre Awards Regional Theatre Awards 1995 for Best Director (The Rose Tattoo)[citation needed]
- Contact International Festival, Torun 1994 Critics Award (Full Moon)[citation needed]
- Manchester Evening News Award 1996 for Best Production (The Hindle Wakes)[citation needed]
- Manchester Evening News Awards 1997 for Best Production (Much Ado About Nothing)[citation needed]
- Polish Festival of Premieres, Bydgoszcz 2004: Grand Prix for Best Director (Victory)[citation needed]
Bibliography
- Werewolves, translation from Teresa Lubkiewicz-Urbanowicz, Plays and Players, 1978
- Grave Acts, Dialog, 1981
- Tola Korian, Pamietnik Teatralny, 1986
- Full Moon, Plays International, 1993
- "Flowers Among the Ruins - Identity and the Theatre", in Views of Theatre in Ireland 1995, The Arts Council, 1995
- Victory (translation into Polish), Dialog, 2004
- Remembering Pinter, Dialog, 2010
- Sons Without Fathers, from Chekhov's Platonov, Oberon Books, 2013
From 2017, Kaut-Howson wrote a column in Tydzień Polski, called "Notes from the wings".