Angels in America - National Theatre (Lyttelton)
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
A 25th anniversary production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes opens in the National’s Lyttelton Theatre on May 4, 2017, following preview performances from April 11.
America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell.
Millennium Approaches, the first of the two plays which form Angels in America, received its British premiere directed by Declan Donnellan at the National’s Cottesloe Theatre in 1992, and was joined by Perestroika in a double-bill the following year.
The cast of the National Theatre’s 2017 revival of Tony Kushner’s landmark work includes Stuart Angell, Susan Brown, Laura Caldow, Andrew Garfield, Denise Gough, Nathan Lane, Amanda Lawrence, James McArdle, Becky Namgauds, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Russell Tovey, Stan West and Lewis Wilkins.
The production will be directed by Olivier and Tony award-winner Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse, Husbands & Sons) and designed by Ian MacNeil, with costumes by Nicky Gillibrand, lighting by Paule Constable, choreography by Robby Graham, music by Adrian Sutton and sound by Ian Dickinson.
Puppetry co-designer and director is Finn Caldwell, with puppetry co-designer Nick Barnes, illusions are by Chris Fisher and aerial direction by Gwen Hales.
Tony Kushner said: “25 years ago, Richard Eyre and the National Theatre launched Angels in America with Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s brilliant production. I’m thrilled that Angels is returning there. And of course, I’m delighted that the production features a cast so fantastic I wouldn’t dare dream it up, directed by the ever-astonishing Marianne Elliott!”
Director Marianne Elliott said: “Such plays come along possibly once, or twice, in a lifetime…if you’re lucky. The show is current and inspiring. It stretches your mind and your soul, and should change you irrevocably. I think, to anyone who sees the play, as to me who is currently living with it, it feels like it is OUR story. Politically, but also personally. I think you can’t help connect with it, whoever you are. Tony Kushner is the Shakespeare of our day.”
NB: Public booking for Angels in America will open at 8.30am on Friday, January 20, 2017.
Angels in America will be broadcast by NT Live from the National Theatre to cinemas around the UK and internationally. Dates and venues to be announced.
Also in the Lyttelton Theatre: Ivo van Hove’s production of Ibsen’s masterpiece Hedda Gabler, with Ruth Wilson in the title role (until March 21) and US playwright Lindsey Ferrentino’s Ugly Lies the Bone (previewing from February 22, 2017).