World-class theatre productions and performances are coming to the big screen in Langley as part of Cineplex’s 2018 Stage Series.
In this year’s lineup, Cineplex will celebrate Victorian playwright and poet Oscar Wilde with productions of his four most notable plays, A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, captured live from London’s historic West End Vaudeville Theatre.
In addition, the season will include the following new and returning favourites from National Theatre Live:
The previously announced Young Marx, Nicholas Hytner’s production that opened The Bridge Theatre in London, starring Rory Kinnear and Oliver Chris;
Benedict Andrews’ bold update of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring Sienna Miller, Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney;
Encore presentations of Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, the fastest selling show in London’s theatre history;
Nicholas Hytner’s Julius Caesar, with a star-studded cast including Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, David Calder and David Morrissey
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE – Vaudeville Theatre
Jan. 18, 2018 (captured live)
Directed by Dominic Dromgoole; Starring Eve Best and Anne Reid
Olivier award-winner Eve Best (A Moon for the Misbegotten, Hedda Gabler) and BAFTA-nominated actress Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) star in this new, classically staged production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy directed by Dominic Dromgoole, former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe.
An earnest young American woman, a louche English lord and an innocent young chap join a house party of fin de siècle fools and grotesques. Nearby, a woman lives, cradling a long-buried secret. First performed in 1893, Oscar Wilde’s marriage of glittering wit and drama satirised the socially conservative world of the Victorian upper-class, creating a vivid new theatrical voice which still resonates today.
YOUNG MARX – National Theatre Live
Feb. 3, 2018 (encore)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner; Starring Rory Kinnear and Oliver Chris
Rory Kinnear (Penny Dreadful, Othello) is Marx and Oliver Chris (Twelfth Night, Green Wing) is Engels in this new comedy written by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman. It’s 1850 and Europe’s most feared terrorist is hiding in Dean Street, Soho. Broke, restless and horny, the thirty-two-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit and child-like emotional illiteracy. Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, his only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the piss than Karl Heinrich Marx.
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF – National Theatre Live
Feb. 22, 2018 (captured live) and Feb. 25, 2018 (encore)
Directed by Benedict Andrews; Starring Sienna Miller, Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney
Tennessee Williams’ twentieth century masterpiece, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, played a strictly limited season in London’s West End in 2017. Following his smash hit production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Benedict Andrews’ revival stars Sienna Miller alongside Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney.
On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gathers at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?
HAMLET – National Theatre Live
March 1, 2018 and March 4, 2018 (encores)
Directed by Lyndsey Turner; Starring Benedict Cumberbatch
Now seen by over 750,000 people worldwide, the original 2015 National Theatre Live broadcast starring Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game) returns to cinemas.
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state. Directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Production.
JULIUS CAESAR – National Theatre Live
March 22 (live) and May 12 (encore)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner; Starring Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, David Calder and David Morrissey
Ben Whishaw (The Danish Girl, Skyfall, Hamlet) and Michelle Fairley (Fortitude, Game of Thrones) play Brutus and Cassius, David Calder (The Lost City of Z, The Hatton Garden Job) plays Caesar and David Morrissey (The Missing, Hangmen, The Walking Dead) is Mark Antony.
Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital. Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.
LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN – Vaudeville Theatre
April 26, 2018 (captured live)
Directed by Kathy Burke; Starring Samantha Spiro and Kevin Bishop
A new production of Oscar Wilde’s social comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, directed by award-winning writer, actor and director Kathy Burke. Burke brings together a talented comedic cast including the Olivier award-winning actress Samantha Spiro as Mrs. Erlynne, Kevin Bishop as Lord Darlington and guest star Jennifer Saunders as the Duchess of Berwick in a performance that marks her return to the West End stage for the first time in over 20 years.
The day of Lady Windermere’s birthday party and all is perfectly in order. Until her friend, Lord Darlington, plants a seed of suspicion. Is her husband having an affair? And will the other woman really attend the party? First performed in 1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan explores the ambiguity of upper class morality and the fragile position of women in society in the late Victorian era in one of Wilde’s most popular and witty plays.
AN IDEAL HUSBAND – Vaudeville Theatre
Sept. 27, 2018 (captured live)
More info to come.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST – Vaudeville Theatre
Nov. 8, 2018 (captured live)
More info to come.
For more information about the series, and a complete schedule of Cineplex’s Stage Series, visit Cineplex.com/stage.
