NT Live: From Britain's National Theatre
The Third season of exceptional plays captured live in high definition
Direct from London to Australian cinema screens.
Travelling Light.
25 & 26 FEBRUARY 2012 AT 1PM
a new play by Nicholas Wright
How had a twenty–two–year–old pretentious layabout made a discovery that would elude everyother cinematic pioneer for years to come?
In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father’s cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl – now a famed American film director – looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.
Following Vincent in Brixton and The Reporter, Nicholas Wright’s new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood’s golden age. The award-winning Antony Sher – whose previous work with the National Theatre includes Primo and Stanley – returns to play Jacob.
The Comedy of Errors.
24 & 25 March 2012 AT 1PM
by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s furiously paced comedy will be staged in a contemporary world into which walk three prohibited foreigners who see everything for the first time.
Two sets of twins separated at birth collide in the same city without meeting for one crazy day, as multiple mistaken identities lead to confusion on a grand scale. And for no one more so than Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio who, in search of their brothers, arrive in a land entirely foreign to their distant home. A buzzing metropolis, to the outsiders it appears a place of wonderment and terror, where baffling gifts and unexplained hostilities abound.
Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
Consistently recognised by strangers, the visitors question their very selves as the turmoil escalates. Meanwhile, Aegeon, father to the Antipholus twins, has been captured searching for his sons and, as an illegal immigrant, is sentenced to death at sunset.
She Stoops To Conquer.
14 & 15 APRIL 2012 AT 1PM
by Oliver Goldsmith
Hardcastle, a man of substance, looks forward to acquainting his daughter with his old pal’s son with a view to marriage. But thanks to playboy Lumpkin, he’s mistaken by his prospective son in-law Marlow for an innkeeper, his daughter for the local barmaid. The good news is, while Marlow can barely speak to a woman of quality he’s a charmer with those of a different stamp. And so, as Hardcastle’s indignation intensifies, Miss Hardcastle’s appreciation for her misguided suitor soars. Misdemeanours multiply, love blossoms, mayhem ensues.
To come to my house, to call for what he likes, to turn me out of my own chair, to insult the family, to order his servants to get drunk, and then to tell me, “This house is mine, sir”. By all that’s impudent it makes me laugh.
One of the great, generous-hearted and ingenious comedies of the English language, Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer offers a celebration of chaos, courtship and the dysfunctional family.
This little barmaid though runs in my head most strangely, and drives out the absurdities of all the rest of the family. She’s mine, she must be mine, or I’m greatly mistaken.
Adults - $25, Concessions - $21