Follow North East Theatre Guide on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NETheatreGuide and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NETheatreGuide. Read about JoWhereToGo and its
PR and photography services here.
An idealist, a pragmatist and a
fence-sitter
in a very British piece of Gallic
whimsy
Heroes
by Gérald Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard
Newcastle People’s Theatre
Tuesday 3rd to Saturday 7th May 2016
Written by a Frenchman and rendered into English by
Czech-born Tom Stoppard, Heroes was
described by its translator as “a very British play” and by its author as a
comic take on “the universal desire to escape from the confines of life”.
 |
Philippe (Tony
Neale), Gustave (Gordon Mounsey),
Henri (Steve Robertson)
Photo: Paula Smart
|
It's 1959 and Philippe, Gustave and Henri, three
veterans from the First World War, dream of making their escape from the old
soldiers' home - well, at least as far as the poplar trees on the hill.
The gentle humour of this play arises from the
foibles of these men as they wait for inevitable death, which they avoided in
the trenches of their youth.
“Don’t talk to me
about Autumn…September and October are living death.”
 |
Henri (Steve
Robertson), Philippe (Tony Neale),
Gustave (Gordon Mounsey)
Photo: Paula Smart
|
Gustave suffers from a crippling agoraphobia, Henri
is afflicted by a gammy leg, and Phillippe periodically passes out due to a
piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain.
These three old codgers live in a fantasy world of verbal
duelling, sexual fantasy, and the vexed question of whether or not the nearby
statue of a dog has a life of its own.
Gérald Sibleyras's Le Vent des Peupliers (“The Wind in the Poplars”) premiered in Paris in 2002.
Tom Stoppard’s English translation opened at Wyndham's
Theatre, London, three years later, winning the Laurence Olivier
Award for Best New Comedy in 2006.
In this studio production, the People’s Theatre is
proud to give the play its premiere on Tyneside.
Tickets:
DATE: Tuesday 3rd to Saturday 7th
May 2016
TIME: 7.30pm
VENUE: The
Studio Upstairs, The People’s Theatre, Stephenson Road, Newcastle upon
Tyne, NE6 5QF
No comments:
Post a Comment