Sentence I did not expect to type today: Quentin Tarantino has a West End stage play coming in 2027, THE POPINJAY CAVALIER, with Sacha Baron Cohen starring.
Tarantino writes enormous, showy, talk-heavy scenes, which is theoretically great for the stage -- the diner scenes, the bar scene in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, those are basically one-acts already. The question is whether he can build tension without a camera to control where you look. That is the whole job on stage and it is not a small adjustment.
And Baron Cohen is a real stage animal when he wants to be, so the casting tracks better than the headline suggests.
The play itself was already announced but Cohen’s involvement is newly announced I believe. I’m a pretty big Tarantino fan and it’s funny to see how firmly he’s backed himself into a corner. He wants to stick to his ten movie rule because he’s spent almost 30 years blabbering about it to anyone who will listen but his continuous success means there’s pressure on it that wasn’t there when he first started saying it. So now we’re getting West End plays while he tries to figure out what his “final statement” will be.
"Quentin called, I said yes before he even got to say his first ‘motherfXer,'" shares Cohen in a statement. "When the best director in the world calls, you don’t ask questions, I am beyond delighted that we will be losing our West End virginity together. I have made him promise not to be gentle.”
Very exciting to see if two people who have proven their talents on screen can translate to stage. I am skeptical, tbh, esp re Tarantino's ability to tell a story without his genius use of camera visuals, but talk about a burst of talent arriving on stage. Awesome.
It’s gonna be crap. First time theatre writer and director and first time stage actor together with acrobats and swash buckling!?
However I have tickets to the 7th preview and am uber taxi excited! I hope it’s better than bread and QT spends the next decade dishing up delights in the West End! Long live the West End