Remember when two different theater companies simultaneously decided to stage (restage?) James Baldwin and William Buckley’s 1965 debate?

Usually, in the theater world, we only get multiple takes on similar/the same text when a new revival of a certifiable classic comes to town.

Which is why it’s a wonder that consecutive seasons will provide us with a more novel approach to such retacklings.

European-stalwart-of-the-avant-garde director Thomas Ostermeier’s adaptation of Édouard Louis’ novel Who killed my father is now playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse, starring Louis himself. Flash forward to September, and European-stalwart-of-the-avant-garde director Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Who killed my father opens at London’s Young Vic (not starring Louis).

Philistines of the avant-garde won’t understand the monumentality of this (coincidental?) doubling; two titans of their form both setting their simultaneous sights on the same, relatively new material?! A more accessible comparison, from the land of movies: it would be like if Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg each directed their own movie adaptation of the same, hot-off-the-presses, uncanonical novel, released within the span of a few months.

Yeah, so who wants to pay my way to London in, oh I don’t know, say mid-September??