Hare's Skylight Opens on B'way 9/19 | Playbill

Related Articles
News Hare's Skylight Opens on B'way 9/19 Skylight, David Hare's play that won the 1996 Olivier Award as Best Play in London, opened Sept. 19 at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.

Skylight, David Hare's play that won the 1996 Olivier Award as Best Play in London, opened Sept. 19 at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.

Richard Eyre, who runs London's National Theatre and who directed Hare's Racing Demon on Broadway last season, has once again recreated his London staging of the drama, with both the London leads, Michael Gambon and Lea Williams.

Gambon's classic title performance in the TV miniseries, The Singing Detective, caused an increase in his big-screen visibility (A Man of No Importance, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Toys). Williams is known for the London Oleanna.

"Essentially," says Eyre, the play is about two characters. One is a businessman in his late 50s--a rich, successful entrepeneur. The other--a woman 25 years younger than he--is a teacher and dedicated her life to the service of others. They once had an affair, and he has returned to resume it. Skylight is about romantic passion--but, also, ways of life. His life--the life of an entrepeneur, making money--is the complete opposite of hers."

Tickets for Skylight can be ordered by calling Tele-Charge at (212) 239-6200. Outside metro NY: (800) 432-7250. Tickets can also be ordered on Playbill On-Line. This is the fifth, and latest, Hare & Eyre joint endeavor. The first, The Great Exhibition," occurred 20 years ago. During the past five or six years, the two have been focused on a controversial trilogy of plays that depicted various aspects of contemporary English life. Racing Demon took on the Anglican Church, caught between empty rhetoric and social action; Murmurring Judges examined the legal system; The Absence of War explored politics.

"I think it's unlikely the other two will be coming over," Eyre admits. "They are much more localized and less universal than Racing Demon, which somehow, though it is about the behavior of the Church of England, has a certain universality. Also, it was better received than these other two plays."

Eyre's first order of nonadministrative business at the National will be to direct The Prince's Play, derived from a play by Victor Hugo called La Roi S'amuse (The King Amuses Himself).

"You think you don't know it, but you do if you know opera. It's the play from which Rigoletto was taken. Tony Harrison's done an adaptation set in England at the end of the 19th century."
 

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!