Kean posts closing notices at the Apollo Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ADRIAN Noble’s revival of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1954 play, Kean, which was booking until August 18, 2007 at the West End’s Apollo Theatre, will now close on July 14, 2007, after a run of just seven weeks.
The next production scheduled for the Apollo Theatre is Danish choreographer Peter Schaufuss’ Rolling Stones inspired dance show Satisfaction, which opens on August 29, 2007.
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Previously Posted: Following a short regional tour, Adrian Noble’s revival of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1954 play, Kean, will open on May 30, 2007 (previews from May 24) at the Apollo Theatre where it’s initially booking until August 18, 2007.
Based on Alexandre Dumas pere’s original which was written in 1826, shortly after Kean’s death, and translated by Frank Hauser, the new production will star Antony Sher as the great 19th century actor Edmund Kean who was widely regarded as the greatest classical actor of his day.
Born in 1787, he first appeared at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1814, playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice – a performance that roused the audience to almost uncontrollable enthusiasm. It was followed by Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.
According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, seeing the diminutive Kean act “was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”
However, the excesses of Kean’s private life – the drinking, gambling and womanising – cut short his career. His last stage appearance, on March 25, 1833, at Covent Garden, was playing Othello to his son Charles Kean’s Iago.
It was during the third act that he broke down and cried “O God, I am dying.” Just two months later he was dead.
Promotional material for the new production describes the actor’s private life as “a public performance, a tragic-comedy about a man with an insatiable appetite for romantic adventure, an ego as big as a stage and an inability to rescue himself from jeopardy.”
Like Kean, South African-born Sher is noted for his classical performances, many of them for the Royal Shakespeare Company – The Winter’s Tale, Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard III, Stanley, King Lear, The Roman Actor, The Malcontent and Othello.
He has also written and starred in I.D. (playing the assassin of former South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd) and Primo, a one-man play adapted from the memoirs of Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, which he performed in London and New York.
And he made his directing debut at the RSC with Fraser Grace’s Breakfast with Mugabe which transferred to the West End’s Duchess Theatre in May 2006.
As well as Sher, Adrian Noble will direct a cast that includes Sam Kelly, Joanne Pearce, Robert East and Jane Murphy.
The tour opens at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre (March 29 to April 7, 2007) and continues to Bath, Malvern and Brighton.
The Glass Menagerie is currently playing at the Apollo Theatre.
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