A nother new show, another old story. This film-to-stage adaptation is from the 2006 German-language romantic thriller about Stasi surveillance and suppression of art in the former GDR. The accompanying, now almost obligatory, high-prestige screen actor is Keira Knightley , presumably whipping up ticket-selling frenzy and stage-door brouhahas.

Except this production is helmed by theatre wunderkind Robert Icke , whose work is marked by the utmost integrity and who has a record of making fast-moving, suspense-filled work of canonical material (from the Greeks in Oedipus and Oresteia to Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi reimagined as The Doctor).

Icke chooses a difficult story to adapt and direct here. The film follows a Stasi officer who secretly changes sides while spying on a writer and his girlfriend.…