Afterlife - National Theatre (Lyttelton)
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ROGER Allam, who last appeared at the National Theatre in Michael Frayn’s Democracy, returns to play Max Reinhardt in Frayn’s new play Afterlife, which opens in the Lyttelton on June 10, 2008 (previews from June 3) before continuing in repertoire.
Max Reinhardt, one the greatest impresarios of theatrical history, had a lifelong ambition – to dissolve the boundary between theatre and the world it portrays.
Each year at the Salzburg Festival he directed a famous morality play, Everyman, about God sending Death to summon a representative of mankind for judgment. The victim he chooses is a man who, like Reinhardt, rejoices in his wealth and all the pleasures that money can buy.
Then in 1938, Hitler declares his own day of reckoning and sends Death into Austria – leaving Reinhardt, a Jew, as naked and vulnerable as Everyman himself. Afterlife is the story of how Reinhardt achieves his great ambition; though in a way he can scarcely have foreseen.
Michael Blakemore directs a cast that also includes David Burke who was last seen at the National in Frayn’s Copenhagen, Abigail Cruttenden, Peter Forbes, Glyn Grain, Selina Griffiths and David Schofield.
As well as Democracy, which transferred to the West End, Allam’s other work at the National includes The Cherry Orchard, Albert Speer, Summerfolk, Money, for which he received an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Troilus and Cressida; while in the West End, his credits include Boeing Boeing, Blackbird, Aladdin and Privates on Parade, for which he was awarded an Olivier for Best Actor.
On screen, he has appeared in The Queen, The Thick of It, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, A Class Apart and Spooks.
Just two of Frayn’s 13 plays, Democracy (2003) and Copenhagen (1998) both premiered at the National where they were directed by Michael Blakemore. Each won the Evening Standard, South Bank Show and Critics’ Circle Best New Play awards and subsequently transferred to the West End and Broadway.
Frayn’s books include Headlong, Spies which took the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, and The Human Touch. A collection of his writings on theatre, Stage Directions, will be published in May.
Afterlife has set designs by Peter Wilkinson, costumes by Sue Willmington, lighting by Neil Austin, and music and sound by Paul Charlier.