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Not
one, not two, but three new Tom Stoppard plays are about
to premiere at the National's Olivier Theatre.
Now
if one new play by Britain's brainiest playwright is an event, and
two an embarrassment of riches, what will three count as? We'll
probably have to call in Stoppard himself to coin the appropriate
phrase.
Individual
plays
This
isn't the first time that the National Theatre have staged three
contemporary works by the same playwright - it previously hosted
the David Hare trilogy.
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| The
National has also hosted three contemporary works by playwright
David Hare |
But
those were individual plays, written and premiered separately at
the National over a number of years before they were bolted together
as a trilogy examining Britain's church (Racing Demon), judiciary
(Murmuring Judges) and politics (The Absence of War).
Romantics
and revolutionaries
But
Stoppard's gargantuan new work - presented under the umbrella title
The Coast of Utopia - is nine hours of three interconnected
plays, following a group of friends in mid-19th century Russia and
Europe who come of age under the Tsarist autocracy of Nicholas I.
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| The
Coast of Utopia involves more than seventy characters |
The
epic story - romantics and revolutionaries caught up in the struggle
for political freedom in an age of emperors - involves more than
seventy characters, among them Alexander Herzen (played by the always
brilliant Stephen Dillane), a nobleman's son who became the
first self-proclaimed socialist in Russian history, and Ivan Turgenev
(RSC actor Guy Henry crossing the river), the celebrated
Russian playwright and author.
Ambitious
undertaking
"At
the very least", says Ira Nadel, author of the recently published
biography of Stoppard's life, Double Act (Methuen, £25), "this is
his most ambitious undertaking yet. I don't know if there's another
playwright of his stature who, at this point in his career, would
undertake a work as ambitious as this."
What
else does Nadel know about it so far? "It's a re-visit of Travesties,
but I'm told without the laughter. It's a sedate play - there are
lots of ideas, but no fireworks! It's daunting and wonderful and
phenomenal."
On
Trilogy Saturdays, it will be possible to see all three plays on
one day - these take place on 3, 17, 24 and 31 August; 7 and 14
September; and 5, 12 and 19 October.
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