“What, has this thing appeared again tonight?”
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
The theatre is full of doubles. The world on stage mirrors our own; the actors reflect our own desires back to us. In this electric air, we see again what we have seen before and return to stories that have been told forever. But how do we make sense of this classical tradition for the contemporary world? In the 2026 Wal Cherry Lecture, acclaimed theatre director Benedict Andrews reflects on the role of mimesis and doubling in creating new work for the international stage.
Fresh from the success of Óresteia at Iceland’s National Theatre, and Electra/Persona at the National Theatre in London—themselves theatrical mirrors, held together by the classical figure of Elektra—Andrews returns to Adelaide to explore the implausible lightning bolts that have taken his career from Flinders to Adelaide’s indie scene of the 1990s to Europe’s most venerable houses. After the lecture, he will be joined in conversation by Matthew Lutton OAM, Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival.