There are certain elements one can count on when approaching a new London theatre season. Top stage actors is one. A few guest appearances by American playwrights is another. A handful of Shakespeares, of course. And, if one is very lucky, a new play by David Hare.
The fall 2008 London line-up has all that and more. Since Hare has already been mentioned, let's start with him. Titled Gethsemane, the playwright's new work will debut at the National Theatre (opening Nov. 11 at the Cottesloe, to be exact), as have 13 of Hare's works before it. Howard Davies will direct a cast that includes the National Theatre debut of the television and Olivier Award-winning actress Tamsin Greig. The new play is described as being about British public life, "looking at the way business, media and politics are now intertwined to nobody's advantage."
photo by Joan Marcus |
The season at the Donmar Warehouse — which will be working out of its usual Covent Garden home as well as the West End's Wyndham's Theatre — is no less impressive in terms of talent. At Wyndham's, Kenneth Branagh has taken on the disaffected title character in a new production of Chekhov's Ivanov, adapted by Tom Stoppard and directed by Michael Grandage, which opened Sept. 17. Branagh will be followed by Derek Jacobi's Malvolio in Twelfth Night, another Grandage production, beginning Dec. 5. At Covent Garden, Alan Rickman will guide Tom Burke, Anna Chancellor and Owen Teale through a new look at Strindberg's terse three-hander, Creditors.
photo by Aubrey Reuben |
One of the most talked-about West End commercial productions is the stage reworking of the Dustin Hoffman-Tom Cruise film Rain Man, about young hotshot Charlie Babbitt and his autistic savant older brother Raymond. The show stars film actor Josh Harnett (making his West End debut) as Charlie and Adam Godley as Raymond, and has already experienced its share of bumps. Original director David Grindley left during early rehearsals, and his duties were taken over by director/playwright Terry Johnson. Recently, it delayed its opening date from Sept. 9 to Sept. 19.
photo by Aubrey Reuben |
Musical fans will want to keep an eye on a new West End revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Carousel, beginning previews Nov. 22 and opening Dec. 2 at the Savoy. Lindsay Posner directs Jeremiah James as carnival barker Billy Bigelow and Alexandra Silber as his love Julie Jordan. The show was famously revived in London in the early nineties by Nicholas Hytner, in a production that traveled to Broadway. A U.K. national tour will precede the London stop.
Among the significant West End transfers this fall are the move of the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of Jerry Herman's La Cage aux Folles to the Playhouse on Oct. 20, with Douglas Hodge as Albin and Denis Lawson as George, who also directs; the hit revival of the Pam Gems bio-play Piaf, starring Elena Roger, which will travel from the Donmar Warehouse to the Vaudeville Oct. 16; and Rupert Goold's production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, which began this past summer at Chichester's Minerva Theatre and is now playing the West End's Gielgud Theatre.
Further attractions of the fall include Menier's new production of the Jacobean masterpiece The White Devil, directed by Jonathan Munby, starting Oct. 3; and a new Hamlet, starring David Tennant and directed by Gregory Doran, a Royal Shakespeare Theatre mounting starting Dec. 3 at the Novello. Hey, what's a London season without a new Hamlet?