Sir Peter Hall's PYGMALION coming to BAM

Should be great. Tim Piggott-Smith is fantastic (though too bad about Stephen Dillane):


"Old Vic artistic director Kevin Spacey has invited Peter Hall's production of Pygmalion to fill the hole in his season created by the canceled Bridge Project productions of Hamlet and The Tempest.

Hall's revival of George Bernard Shaw's enduring classic opened at the Theatre Royal Bath June 28. The transfer to London will see Tim Piggott-Smith and Michelle Dockery (His Dark Materials) reprise their performances as, respectively, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.

Piggot-Smith appeared with Spacey in Howard Davies' production of The Iceman Cometh, the production which in large part changed the course of Spacey's career from Hollywood to London.

Piggot-Smith's other credits include See How They Run, Julius Caesar and Mourning Becomes Electra.

The canceled productions of Hamlet and The Tempest, starring Stephen Dillane, were to kick off The Bridge Project collaboration between director Sam Mendes, London's Old Vic and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In July Dillane pulled out of the project because of illness in his family."



http://www.playbill.com/news/article/112461.html

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Updated On: 11/2/07 at 02:16 PM

Well, runs at BAM are typically very short, such as the recent visit by the RSC with Ian McKellan doing KING LEAR and THE SEAGULL. They did both plays in rep over the course of just three weeks. The upcoming production of Beckett's HAPPY DAYS w/ Fiona Shaw is also only three weeks. BAM usually has no trouble selling out three weeks of performances from their subscriber base alone.

This also wouldn't be the first time that BAM booked an acclaimed international production of a play that had just been recently on Broadway or elsewhere in Manhattan and it never seems to affect ticket demand to see their productions (the Propeller Theatre and Sir Peter Hall brought over productions of TWELFTH NIGHT to BAM which both sold out less than a year apart despite the play having been done in the Park the previous summer). BAM's theatre productions at the Harvey almost always sellout or come close -- they have a big subscriber base which doesn't seem to care and buys tickets regardless. Not to mention, BAM typically books the cream of the crop from the UK and Europe (RSC, Cheek by Jowl, et al) so it's always worth revisiting whichever classic that's being done, since it's almost always a very entertaining and different interpretation and often superior to to whatever local productions of the piece that have been done recently.

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that's a fair point, margo -- i just saw cheek by jowl's "cymbeline" at the harvey in may, and now it's at LCT.

i guess i was just disappointed with the news on its merits -- i was up for some hamlet.

plus, im always looking for an excuse to question dame spacey's judgment ...

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