Starry line-up as Ifans does the double . . .
RhyS IfANS is going to be packing a one -two punch on the South Bank. he will lead a new version of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist play Exit The King , adapted and directed by Patrick Marber, at the National Theatre.
he plays King Berenger who, when we meet him, is on his last legs — not surprising, given that he’s 400 years old.
Geoffrey R ush played the aged monarch on Broadway eight years ago; with Susan Sarandon as one of his royal wives.
The play will go into production next year and will follow Ifans’ run at the Old Vic in A Christmas Carol.
Other shows destined for the National’s three auditoriums in 2018 (and perhaps beyond) include a revival of Rodney Ackland’s Absolute hell, a raucous study of life after dark in post-war Soho, to be directed by Joe hill Gibbins. (Judi Dench starred in a 1995 production at the NT directed by Anthony Page.)
Ian Rickson will direct Brian friel’s Translations and Lyndsey Turner has been developing a musical version of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, featuring a score by James humphreys, expected to open in time for next Christmas.
Dominic Cooke will direct a new work by American dramatist Bruce Norris. Cooke was instrumental in giving Norris’s work a platform when he was artistic chief at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The American’s plays The P ain And The Itch, Clybourne Park and The Low Road all ran at the Court.
Norris’s new piece ( whose name I’ve yet to dis - cover) might prove controversial. It is about a group of paedophiles who reside in a special unit. When one victim demands an apology , his abuser refuses to accept he has done anything wrong . The play will be a joint production between the National and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. (Step - penwolf did not want to do it in Chicago until it had been performed elsewhere first.)
‘It’s a very incendiary play and it’s going to offend a lot of people,’ someone who’s read Norris’s playtext predicted.
They sound like the very reasons it should be staged here. The National Theatre doesn ’t exist to play it safe.