At last - a play!!!! Old Times
Aug 10, 2012 5:21:08 GMT
Post by GreenEyesToo on Aug 10, 2012 5:21:08 GMT
Another bout of insomnia, another piece of news! (Hmmm...there's a pattern here! 
):
Olivier Award winner Kristin Scott Thomas and Tony Award nominee Lia Williams are set to join Rufus Sewell in the upcoming West End revival of Harold Pinter's OLD TIMES. In a decision reminiscent of Danny Boyle's FRANKENSTEIN, however, the actresses have each been cast as both Anna and Kate.
"Sometimes we might even toss a coin to decide who goes on playing what part," director Ian Rickson tells The Daily Mail. "Rufus also loves the idea, because it gives him lots of opportunity. There's a very strong connection between Anna and Kate and they do somehow share the same soul."
broadwayworld.com/article/Kristin-Scott-Thomas-Lia-Williams-Cast-in-West-End-OLD-TIMES-Revival-Will-Swap-Roles-Throughout-Run-20120809
And
The toss of a coin will determine which role award-winning actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams will play each night in a revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times.
This dramatic swap means that leading man Rufus Sewell may not always know who’s who until the curtain goes up.
The play, originally staged by Peter Hall with Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin and Vivien Merchant (Pinter’s then wife), is set in a swanky farmhouse where married couple Deeley and Kate chat about an impending visit from Kate’s old friend and roommate Anna, whom they haven’t seen for 20 years.
This is one of Pinter’s ‘memory’ plays, so it’s the past that betrays. When Anna does arrive, all three discuss incidents that may, or may not, have happened.
Ian Rickson, who rehearses the new production in late November, thought it would be ‘creatively exciting to mine the play, by having both women playing the parts and swapping on different nights’.
He says there’s a ‘very strong connection between Anna and Kate and they do somehow share the same soul’. Others think the two women could even be aspects of the same person.
...........
Rickson would not have dreamt of splitting the roles unless he knew the actresses well. He has directed Scott Thomas twice before: in her Olivier-award winning role in The Seagull and more recently in another Pinter classic, Betrayal. Rickson directed Williams in The Hothouse at the National, and what’s more, the actress has an innate understanding of the point of a Pinter pause.
‘They both have this wonderful, deep intensity — as has Rufus,’ the director told me.
Old Times will begin previews, appropriately enough, at The Harold Pinter Theatre (the old Comedy Theatre) around January 12. A spokeswoman for producer Sonia Friedman said that date was still being finalised. An official opening night will be held late in January, with tickets going on sale in the autumn.
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2186304/Heads-Lia--tails-Kristin-The-toss-coin-decide-leading-lady-Harold-Pinters-revived-play.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
WOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
):Olivier Award winner Kristin Scott Thomas and Tony Award nominee Lia Williams are set to join Rufus Sewell in the upcoming West End revival of Harold Pinter's OLD TIMES. In a decision reminiscent of Danny Boyle's FRANKENSTEIN, however, the actresses have each been cast as both Anna and Kate.
"Sometimes we might even toss a coin to decide who goes on playing what part," director Ian Rickson tells The Daily Mail. "Rufus also loves the idea, because it gives him lots of opportunity. There's a very strong connection between Anna and Kate and they do somehow share the same soul."
broadwayworld.com/article/Kristin-Scott-Thomas-Lia-Williams-Cast-in-West-End-OLD-TIMES-Revival-Will-Swap-Roles-Throughout-Run-20120809
And
The toss of a coin will determine which role award-winning actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams will play each night in a revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times.
This dramatic swap means that leading man Rufus Sewell may not always know who’s who until the curtain goes up.
The play, originally staged by Peter Hall with Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin and Vivien Merchant (Pinter’s then wife), is set in a swanky farmhouse where married couple Deeley and Kate chat about an impending visit from Kate’s old friend and roommate Anna, whom they haven’t seen for 20 years.
This is one of Pinter’s ‘memory’ plays, so it’s the past that betrays. When Anna does arrive, all three discuss incidents that may, or may not, have happened.
Ian Rickson, who rehearses the new production in late November, thought it would be ‘creatively exciting to mine the play, by having both women playing the parts and swapping on different nights’.
He says there’s a ‘very strong connection between Anna and Kate and they do somehow share the same soul’. Others think the two women could even be aspects of the same person.
...........
Rickson would not have dreamt of splitting the roles unless he knew the actresses well. He has directed Scott Thomas twice before: in her Olivier-award winning role in The Seagull and more recently in another Pinter classic, Betrayal. Rickson directed Williams in The Hothouse at the National, and what’s more, the actress has an innate understanding of the point of a Pinter pause.
‘They both have this wonderful, deep intensity — as has Rufus,’ the director told me.
Old Times will begin previews, appropriately enough, at The Harold Pinter Theatre (the old Comedy Theatre) around January 12. A spokeswoman for producer Sonia Friedman said that date was still being finalised. An official opening night will be held late in January, with tickets going on sale in the autumn.
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2186304/Heads-Lia--tails-Kristin-The-toss-coin-decide-leading-lady-Harold-Pinters-revived-play.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
WOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
How cool is that?! The leading role, and a wife called Kate. The whole thing sounds fantastic!
, great find, GET.
!
... and great idea for a meet-up !!!! I will be IN... 
