London Spotlight: October 2009
Jane Horrocks, one of the town’s best comediennes and a performer who can do anything, opens this month at the Young Vic (October 3-January 2), in Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun. She’ll be singing “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,” “Moonshine Lullaby,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and many more of the songs from the superlative score.
Clare Higgins stars as seminal psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in Nicholas Wright’s Mrs. Klein at the Almeida (October 22-December 5), in which the famous shrink experiences problems at home that she’s having more difficulty deciphering. Also on the play revival roster, there’s Ferdinand Bruckner’s Pains of Youth at the National’s Cottesloe (October 21-January 21) in Martin Crimp’s new treatment. Katie Mitchell, a specialist in stage miracles, helms.
Samuel Beckett’s Endgame at the Duchess (October 2-December 5) should be riveting stuff, since the focal Beckett figures Hamm and Clov are played by Mark Rylance, fresh from his Jerusalem and Boeing-Boeing successes, and Simon McBurney, who’s directing, and is just terrific with these sorts of enterprises.
Pedro Calderon’s venerated Life is a Dream in a new version by the esteemed Helen Edmundson comes to the Donmar Warehouse (October 18-November 28) with Dominic West starring and Jonathan Munby directing. The Grapes of Wrath in Frank Galati’s version of the John Steinbeck classic (or near-classic) stops at the New Wimbledon, as the English Touring Theatre and the Chichester Festival Theatre have approached it (October 1-3). Also at the busy Wimbledon house (October 6-10) is Matthew Bourne’s riveting Dorian Gray a take, needless to say, on Oscar Wilde’s scandalous Picture of Dorian Gray. Bourne updates the tale among hotshot fashion fotogs and their models.
New play gluttons are advised to visit Kilburn and the Tricycle where Roy Williams’ Category B about prison life is in repertory (October 8-December 19) with Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Seize the Day about a London mayoralty campaign. The playwrights are among Britain’s finest at the moment and not to be missed. Venture to the Bush in Shepard’s Bush to see Nick Payne’s If There is I Haven’t Found It (October 17-November 11). The plot concerns an overweight girl who fights her bullies.
On the Fringe is When the Cat’s Away at the Hackney Empire (October 10-November 10). This one’s a comedy about a Jamaican family. Also consider the Hampstead where Atiha Sen Gupta’s What Fatima Did… (October 22-November 7) will scrutinize how one woman dramatically affected her community.
A determined theater fan may be glad to travel the short distance to Greenwich for Sheridan’s School for Scandal and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus playing at the Greenwich in repertory (October 3-17). Those seeking family entertainment will find it also at the Greenwich by way of Hansel and Gretel (October 26-28). Or there’s Trevor Griffiths’ devastating dark comedy Comedians at the Lyric Hammersmith (October 7-November 14). Those who’ve never seen it should; those who have seen it will want to see it again.
Along Shaftesbury Avenue — once the main stem for the most significant play and musical productions — things have changed. Often now, the houses are used for off-beat entertainments or one-man shows like, for instance, Dylan Moran: What It Is at the Apollo (October 26-December 5). He’s a young stand-up comic making a sizable current dent in the culture. At the Lyric on Monday nights (October 12-December 14) is a bit of something called Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret, which sure sounds as if it’s geared to the financial moment.
Rupert Goold seems like the preferred director these last few years, and is going directly from the already sizzling Enron at the Royal Court and soon to be in the West End to Puccini’s Turandot at the London Coliseum (in repertory October 8-December 9.)
