Long before Willem Dafoe became a feted figure of the Hollywood establishment, he was a disrupter, immersed in experimental theatre. On that count, no one can accuse the forces that enlisted Dafoe as Venice Biennale Teatro’s artistic director of a cynically celebrity-led appointment.
Dafoe’s programme expressly reflects the influences and passions that shaped him, not least the Wooster Group, a New York company he co-founded which appears in his Venice lineup. But the risk with this personal nod to the past is that the once-edgy becomes dated experimentalism.
