London Spotlight: April 2010
Theater-goers looking for reminders of Hollywood glamour can queue at the Apollo for Debbie Reynolds: Alive and Fabulous (April 28-May 9). Yes, it’s the star of Singin’ in the Rain and many other Tinsel-Town treats — not to mention Broadway’s Irene — being her unedited self as she runs through a 60-year-plus show-biz career. Additional musical delights will include All the Fun of the Fair at the Garrick (April 17-September 5), which pop star David Essex wrote for himself to appear in as a fun-fair operator with a rebellious adolescent son. Also, the acclaimed production of Sweet Charity that sold out at the Menier Chocolate Factory transfers to the Haymarket (April 23-January 1, 2011) with Tamzin Outhwaite continuing in the title role.
Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women reappears at the National’s Olivier (April 20-June 8), directed by the marvelous Marianne Elliott with the redoubtable Harriet Walter heading the ensemble. The marvelous Lez Brotherston designs. Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing gets a brush-up at the Old Vic (April10-June 5) with Anna Mackmin helming a hotsy-totsy cast including Toby Stephens, Fenella Woolgar, Hattie Morahan, and Barnaby Kay. Stephen Adly Guirgis’ sensational behind-bars work Jesus Hopped the A Train, is due at Trafalgar Studios (April 6-24) with a cast that features ex-prisoners.
Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined comes to the Almeida (April 14-June 5), and is about troubled times in the Congo affecting a house of questionable repute. It’s directed by Indhu Rubasingham, and features Jenny Jules and Lucian Msarnati. At the Donmar Warehouse will be Mark Haddon’s Polar Bears (April 1-May 22), a new drama that concerns a man and his psychologically troubled wife. Celia Imrie and Johdi May adorn the cast. The endlessly busy Jamie Lloyd directs.
In Sebastian Barry’s Andersen’s English at the Hampstead (April 7-May 8), Hans Christian Andersen has a long visit with Charles Dickens that never actually happened. David Rintoul, Niamh Cusack, and Danny Sapani will be directed by Max Stafford-Clark in the play. At the Lyric Hammersmith will be The Dark Side of Buffoon (April 7-17), which brothers John and Martin Marquez concocted for themselves as fellows working in a turn-of-the-20th-century Italian circus. Meanwhile, Behud (Beyond Belief) at the Soho (April 13-May 8) was written by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti as a response to the 2004 cancellation of her play Behzti in Birmingham.
Laura Wade’s Posh is in the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs (April 9-May 22), and is about the young, privileged, and brittle. Sarah Ruhl’s controversial Eurydice plays the Young Vic (April 29-June 5), updated from the ancient myth, and directed by Bijan Sheibani. Tom McNab’s 1936 at the Arcola (April 6-24) is a look into pre-World War II Germany’s political scene and the 1936 Olympics.
New works also include Spymonkey’s Moby Dick at the Lyric Hammersmith (April 20-May 1), which isn’t a straight-forward telling of Herman Melville’s classic about that pesky white whale, and Tommy Murphy’s comedy Holding the Man, at Trafalgar Studios (April 23-July 3), which tells the true-life story of Australian actor-writer-activist Conigrave’s relationship with John Caleo, detailing their love in the time of AIDS.
All hail, Shakespeare lovers. The Globe starts its season with Macbeth (April 23-June 27). Lucy Bailey directs the bloody tragedy with Elliot Cowan and Laura Rogers as the lustful and blood-lustful Macbeths. On Tuesday evenings from April 13 to May 11, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Westminster Abbey will offer Shakespeare’s Kings and Westminster Abbey. The lives of Kings Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Richard III and Henry VIII will be examined in speech and music, with RSC actors taking on the roles.
When it comes to off-beat items, little sounds more intriguing than Kontakthof at the Barbican (April 1-4), a dance piece with music by Charlie Chaplin, Nina Rota and others for Tanztheater Wuppertal’s 1978 piece. It boasts non-dancers over 65 dancing and then the same choreography done by teenagers. Next to it, Laurie Anderson’s Delusion at the same venue (April 14-17) will look almost conventional but, as with all the multi-media artist’s works, irresistible.
