Primavera presents: Forgotten Classics
King's Head, Islington, London
Featuring six outstanding plays rarely - if ever - seen in Britain before, the Primavera Forgotten Classics series at the King’s Head is a unique chance to see the work of some of the world’s finest playwrights. Tom Littler directs full-scale casts of West End actors in rehearsed readings ranging from Elizabethan comedy to Romantic drama, including the first play ever written in English by a woman and Charles Dickens’s only stage work.
GALLATHEA
by John Lyly
Written and last performed in London 1594
A blockbuster hit in its own time, GALLATHEA is the source for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night: a comic drama of sexual identity and confusion. In a wood, three hunters seek the love of three beautiful nymphs, who will do anything to stay chaste. Meanwhile, two maidens run into the wood to escape a virgin sacrifice demanded in the town - but one of the girls is disguised as a young man... One of the outstanding comedies of the age.
8pm, Sunday 13 May
MARIAM
by Elizabeth Cary
Written 1613. World Premiere
The first play written in English by a woman. Elizabeth Cary’s explosive ‘closet drama’ provides a new, feminist viewpoint on the Biblical household of King Herod and the infamous Salome. The conflict between Mariam, descendant of the rightful Jewish ruler, and Herod, her Roman-appointed husband, resonates powerfully in the charged atmosphere of the Middle East today.
8pm, Sunday 22 July
Please call the Box Office on 020 7226 1916 to reserve tickets or email: info@kingsheadtheatre.org. Online booking also available:
http://www.kingsheadtheatre.org/theatre-whatson_forgotten.asp
[I'm not sure about the claims of world premieres or first performances since 1594 -- haven't there been numerous productions of Mariam in universities in recent years? And surely someone somewhere has done Gallathea in the last 400 years... But great to see these plays getting an outing with professional casts nonetheless.]
King's Head, Islington, London
Featuring six outstanding plays rarely - if ever - seen in Britain before, the Primavera Forgotten Classics series at the King’s Head is a unique chance to see the work of some of the world’s finest playwrights. Tom Littler directs full-scale casts of West End actors in rehearsed readings ranging from Elizabethan comedy to Romantic drama, including the first play ever written in English by a woman and Charles Dickens’s only stage work.
GALLATHEA
by John Lyly
Written and last performed in London 1594
A blockbuster hit in its own time, GALLATHEA is the source for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night: a comic drama of sexual identity and confusion. In a wood, three hunters seek the love of three beautiful nymphs, who will do anything to stay chaste. Meanwhile, two maidens run into the wood to escape a virgin sacrifice demanded in the town - but one of the girls is disguised as a young man... One of the outstanding comedies of the age.
8pm, Sunday 13 May
MARIAM
by Elizabeth Cary
Written 1613. World Premiere
The first play written in English by a woman. Elizabeth Cary’s explosive ‘closet drama’ provides a new, feminist viewpoint on the Biblical household of King Herod and the infamous Salome. The conflict between Mariam, descendant of the rightful Jewish ruler, and Herod, her Roman-appointed husband, resonates powerfully in the charged atmosphere of the Middle East today.
8pm, Sunday 22 July
Please call the Box Office on 020 7226 1916 to reserve tickets or email: info@kingsheadtheatre.org. Online booking also available:
http://www.kingsheadtheatre.org/theatre-whatson_forgotten.asp
[I'm not sure about the claims of world premieres or first performances since 1594 -- haven't there been numerous productions of Mariam in universities in recent years? And surely someone somewhere has done Gallathea in the last 400 years... But great to see these plays getting an outing with professional casts nonetheless.]
2 comments:
This is so exciting! If only both productions weren't being mounted on either side of my June visit! Thanks for posting this, Crispinella.
Your blog is lovely. I hope there is more to come!
Thank you! I'm hoping to get to one or both myself, if I'm in London, so I might post some comments here if I do.
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