Daring to be different

When Katie Mitchell's nerve-jangling, stripped-back, 1930s-looking production of The Seagull played at the National Theatre last year, it caused a bit of a rumpus. You often get audience members walking out regardless of the production, but it's fair to say those expecting a classic take on Chekhov were in for a bit of a shock - one disgruntled ticket holder even sent Mitchell a copy of the programme with 'rubbish' scrawled over it.

It angered several critics, too - one accused Mitchell of 'arrogance' and 'perversity'; another described the production as 'director's theatre at its most indulgent'. There were as many admiring reviews as there were negative ones. However, it certainly provoked one hell of a reaction, and even today the 43-year-old Mitchell can't quite understand why.

'I can't believe it was so controversial,' she laughs, as we sit in a National Theatre rehearsal studio. 'I was really surprised by the things that created the debate. Although I can understand why people were frustrated by the clothing and the props, which implied I had set it in Stalin's era, which wasn't my intention. I got that bit wrong, I do admit.'

Those who disliked The Seagull's structurally ambitious approach may not be delighted to hear that Mitchell is again playing fast and loose with her new production of Euripides's Women Of Troy. One criticism of The Seagull was that Martin Crimp's new 'version' reorganised parts of the text; with Women Of Troy, Mitchell merrily admits to having slashed the script by 50 per cent. It's also set in a warehouse rather than a Greek prisoner-of-war camp.

But the thing is, you know what you are getting with a Mitchell production: something invigorating, radical, provocative; a perspective that makes you see the play in a different light. This is surely why many label her as one of the most exciting directors around.

Her reasons for staging Women Of Troy - an excoriating lament for husbands and sons killed at war - are obvious. 'Like many people, I turn on the radio each day, hear a report about another terrorist attack in Baghdad or Basra and immediately switch off,' she says. 'Over time, I've begun to feel ashamed of myself, so I wanted to do something that had a conversation with that problem.

'Crudely, I just thought: perhaps we need to imagine what it would be like to be in one of those war zones in order to deepen our understanding. And this play, written just after the Athenians had committed appalling atrocities during the Peloponnesian War, is the ultimate play about collateral damage.'

Mitchell's theatre work invariably inhabits a world full of recurring visual and aural ticks - crepuscular lighting, heightened background noise, a sense that everyone on stage is in the grip of a silent attack of hysteria. Partly this is born out of what she calls her ongoing 'investigation' into pushing the boundaries of representing realism on stage.

She laughingly dismisses the idea that she is an auteur, as some have called her: 'Aren't all directors auteurs?' But she does admit that productions such as her free take on August Strindberg's A Dream Play, her extraordinary version of Virginia Woolf's The Waves (titled Waves and which used video to fabulously moving effect), her devastating production of Iphigenia At Aulis and The Seagull (all for the National, where she is an associate director) have dared to question certain sacred cows.

'I'm more interested in behaviour than words,' she says. 'So when I cut plays, from my point of view, I'm honouring the ideas. In Women Of Troy those ideas are war and violence, family, power and the collapse of all moral certainty. These are more important to me than language. Does that make sense? Or does that sound mad?'

In person, Mitchell is as gregarious and open as her theatre work tends to be emotionally harrowing and dark.

Her family were music hall entertainers; her great-grandmother was a Tiller Girl. 'My granny used to say to me: "Can't you do something a bit more fun, Kate? A comedy or a farce?"' Mitchell only smiles when pressed to say what she said in reply. But what she says next may explain why she's driven towards some of the canon's heaviest plays.