Mother, Give Me the Sun

The esteemed British director Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal, Iris) is in town to direct Ibsen’s Ghosts at BAM. With neuroscientist Heather Berlin, he learns of the neural basis for the pervading theme of attachment and desire that courses through so many of the plays and films and characters that Sir Richard has directed.

About the Speakers

Richard Eyre was director of the UK’s National Theatre between 1987 and 1997 where he directed a noted revival of Guys and Dolls (Evening Standard Award for Best Director, 1982). Other theater highlights include Hamlet with Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980 and Daniel Day-Lewis in 1989; Richard III with Ian McKellen; King Lear with Ian Holm; Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman with Paul Scofield, Vanessa Redgrave and Eileen Atkins; and numerous new plays by David Hare, Tom Stoppard, Trevor Griffiths, Howard Brenton, Alan Bennett, Christopher Hampton and Nicholas Wright. He directed the musical Mary Poppins in London and on Broadway and Bizet’s opera Carmen for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2009/10 season, and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro this season.

His two most notable productions for the BBC were the Falklands War story Tumbledown (starring Colin Firth), which won him the BAFTA Award for Best Director and the Prix Italia in 1988; and Henry IV, Part I and Part II as part of The Hollow Crown series in 2012. Eyre was appointed to the Board of Governors of the BBC in November 1995- 2003). His films include The Ploughman’s Lunch (written by Ian McEwan) in 1982, Iris, (starring Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Jim Broadbent), Notes on a Scandal, (again with Dench, and Cate Blanchett), and The Other Man, starring Liam Neeson, Antonio Banderas and Laura Linney. He has been the recipient of five Olivier Awards. He was knighted in 1997.

He won the Evening Standard Award for Best Director for Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre, the production which will be seen at BAM in April.

Heather Berlin is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She explores interactions of the human brain and mind with the goal of contributing to improved treatment and prevention of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric disorders. She is also interested in the neural basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Heather is passionate about science communication. She is a presenter on the DiscoveryChannel, host of the CUNY TV series”Science Goes to theMovies”, and has appeared on the History Channel, BBC World Service, World Science Festival, StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson, One World with Deepak Chopra, and TEDx. This is her third appearance at Brainwave.