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BERTOLT BRECHT & CHARLES LAUGHTON

planet-sized egos clash in

ORBITS

by Wally Sewell

 

Drayton Arms Theatre

Tuesday February 21 to Saturday March 11

 

Starring

Peter Saracen
Edmund Dehn

 

Director Anthony Shrubsall
Producer Lucy Appleby

 

The planet-sized egos of left wing German playwright Bertolt Brecht and Hollywood film star Charles Laughton clash as they negotiate the translation and adaptation of Brecht’s play Life of Galileo for its American premiere, with Laughton lined up for the lead.
The themes of Life of Galileo – an account of Galileo’s trial for the heresy of believing that the Earth orbits the Sun and his subsequent recantation under threat of torture – reflected in the lives of Laughton, a gay man in 1940s America, and Brecht, whose left wing sympathies would eventually lead him before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Orbits explores how – just as Galileo crumbled under the Inquisition – Brecht’s beloved ‘concrete truth’, could crumble under pressures, political, historical and personal. It’s a fitting tale perhaps for the post-truth times we find ourselves in today.
Peter Saracen (Brecht)
Peter has acted for stage, film and television. Played the lead in Heresy at the Tabard Theatre as the inquisitor Don Domingo in 2014. He played the Pastor in RETZ’s immersive piece The Trial, developed in collaboration with the Barbican and Guildhall and supported by Sky Arts and the Arts Council in 2013. He appeared in the film musical Les Miserables in a singing character part in 2012. He has a wide range of experience, from the classics to street theatre including an appearance in Ken Campbell and Neil Oram’s legendary 20-hour epic The Warp at the Roundhouse Theatre in 1999.
Edmund Dehn (Laughton)
Edmund Dehn’s credits include: Prospero, Job, Becket, Coriolanus amongst many others on stage. He is known for his international hit internet portrayal of popular worldwide cult figure Judge Minty (Best Action Film and Audience Award Wasteland Festival 2013). TV credits include Robert H Jackson in Speer und Er (Bavariafilm), Carlo in 2 series of The 10%ers (Carlton TV) and Gumboil in Knightmare (Anglia TV)  Films and short films include: Spoon (with Rutger Hauer), Brothers Of War, Olive Green, With Love From Suffolk and Lovelorn (Best Supporting Actor LA Reel Film Festival 2009), Junta & Afterlife (Cannes Film Festival Shorts 2014 & 2015). Strontium Dog, Edmund’s latest film, is premiering in London February 11 at 2000AD Festival. Edmund is also a successful voice actor for corporates, commercials and audio books – he was the sole reader on the unabridged Gormenghast Trilogy.
Wally Sewell (writer)
In 2013, as Playwright in Residence for OPEN Ealing Wally wrote Royal Wedding, specially commissioned to exploit the siting of OPEN’s premises next to an erotic goods emporium. The Wrong Tree won an award in the finals of the Off Cut Festival at the Riverside Studios in 2011, and A Muse of Fire was performed there in 2012. The Garden was performed at the Lost Theatre in 2012 and The Adventure of the Crying Boy at the Drayton Court Theatre in 2012. His play Spogons was short-listed for the Croydon Warehouse International Playwriting competition in 2007.
Anthony Shrubsall (director)
Anthony Shrubsall is a freelance theatre director.  A founder member of the Entire Theatre Company and an established director on the London Fringe. Previous work has included Zena Edwards’s Security – the first UK production selected for the Shizuoka Festival, Japan, and Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which was adapted into a series for BBC Radio 4 in 2012.  His work last year included interrupt The Routine: The Gin Chronicles – A Scottish Adventure at the Bridewell Theatre and Edinburgh Festival; Saffron Hill at The Pleasance Theatre; ORBITS in Germany and Poland and Real Life TV at the Barons Court Theatre.
Lucy Appleby (Producer)
Lucy started as a child actor, trained with Uta Hagen in New York, and worked in film, TV, radio and theatre in England and Japan, where she also specialised in voice-overs.  She has directed for Theatre 503 Rapid Write Response and at the Drayton Arms Theatre, co-directed on Effie’s Burning at the Etcetera Theatre and directed The Radio Theatre Company at the Bridewell Theatre. She was assistant director on two productions that went to the Edinburgh Festival in 2014, Frank Sent Me and Signal Failure, which also went to New York. She has directed several short plays for Ealing’s 6X10 series, and she has also directed at the University of West London. She is currently the director of the sell-out production of Brexit the Musical which is on in London.
The Entire Theatre Company
Two performers, a writer, a director and a producer. We create stripped-back productions, that explore character and concept through the medium of the duologue. Our motto: ‘small stage, big ideas’.

Listing

Orbits

Tuesday 21 February – Saturday 11 March
at 8.00pm

Drayton Arms Theatre
153 Old Brompton Road
London
SW5 0LJ

 

Box office:  020 7835 2301

www.draytonarmstheatre.co.uk

Tickets £14.00 / £10.00

 

 

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Hampstead Theatre announces its Spring season 2017 for the Main Stage:

  • The world premiere of Ryan Craig’s fiery new family comedy Filthy Business will be directed by Artistic Director Edward Hall and star Sara Kestelman in the lead role of Yetta.

  • The world premiere of Stephen Brown’s new play Occupational Hazards, based on Rory Stewart’s critically acclaimed memoir of the same name, will by directed by Simon Godwin.

  • The UK premiere of Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ Gloria, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016, will be directed by Michael Longhurst.

FILTHY BUSINESS

A new play by Ryan Craig

Directed by Edward Hall
10 March – 22 April 2017

‘When you’ve got no nation, no government, no place in the world what have you got? Family. You can’t depend on anything else’

Hampstead Theatre presents the world premiere of Ryan Craig’s fiery family drama Filthy Business. Directed by Artistic Director Edward Hall, this new production takes a closer look at the entrepreneurial outsiders who became part of the beating heart of Modern Britain. Critically acclaimed actor Sara Kestelman takes on the lead role of matriarch Yetta Solomon in this epic new work.

1968, East London. Over the years and against all the odds, Yetta Solomon has built a thriving business from nothing through sheer grit and passion. Ignoring all the obstacles – insufficient capital, economic downturns, aggressive competition – she has found a way to survive everything adversity could throw at her.

Now she faces her toughest challenge: her family. In a rapidly changing Britain, Yetta must protect the shop and keep it in the Solomon family. But her sons, grandchildren and in-laws have other ideas… Always ruthless, how far will she go to keep the business in the family and the family in the business?


OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS

A new play by Stephen Brown
Based on the memoir by Rory Stewart

Directed by Simon Godwin
28 April – 3 June 2017

‘It’s democracy. Everyone is equally unhappy. It’s the defining feature of the system’

Hampstead Theatre presents the world premiere of Stephen Brown’s play Occupational Hazards, which is based on Rory Stewart’s critically acclaimed memoir of the same name. Directed by Simon Godwin, this new play tells an extraordinary story about the moral conflicts, the dangers and the comic absurdities inherent in any foreign occupation.

September 2003. Rory Stewart, a thirty year old former British diplomat and soldier of distinction and accomplishment, is posted to serve as governor in a province of the newly liberated Iraq. His job is to help build a new civil society at peace with itself and its neighbours – an ambitious mission, admittedly, but outperforming Saddam should surely not prove too difficult…

Yet, freedom from repressive tyranny has allowed centuries of tribal conflict, sectarian tension and ethnic division to burst into the open once more. These sharp local realities plunge Stewart into a dangerous whirlpool of political intrigue in which the double-dealing of opposing interest groups creates intensifying confusion and chaos. As pressure for a settlement mounts from all sides he comes to realise that all politics is indeed local, and that Washington may have to rethink its dreams of Iraqi democracy.

GLORIA

By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by Michael Longhurst
15 June – 22 July

‘Aren’t you turning thirty any day now? I will die before I turn thirty in a cubicle.’

Hampstead Theatre presents the UK premiere of Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ Gloria, directed by Michael Longhurst. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016, this razor-sharp comic drama focuses on ambition, office warfare and hierarchies, where the only thing that matters is moving up the ladder and selling out to the highest bidder.

New York. A city that runs on ambition – and coffee.
In the offices of a notorious Manhattan magazine, a group of ruthless editorial assistants vie for their bosses’ jobs and a book deal before they’re thirty. But trapped between Starbucks runs, jaded gossip and endless cubicle walls, best-selling memoir fodder is thin on the ground – that is until inspiration arrives with a bang…

BOX OFFICE INFORMATION
Box Office 020 7722 9301 | hampsteadtheatre.com

Priority Booking opens Monday 23 January 10.30am

Public Booking opens Monday 30 January 10.30am

To become a Friend to access Priority Booking please visit hampsteadtheatre.com

Book all three shows and save £15

(offer ends Monday 13 February).