Orlando Bloom - In Celebration - Orlando's Theatre Debut

Vague_Disclaimer · 05-30-2007, 03:18 AM

Thought i may as well make a thread for this.

Variety

Quote:

LONDON -- Orlando Bloom will make his West End debut in veteran Brit playwright David Storey's 1969 drama "In Celebration."
The play, a Chekhovian-style ensemble drama about three brothers returning home for their parents' 40th wedding anniversary, will be directed by Anna Mackmin and produced by Sonia Friedman.

Dates and theater are still subject to confirmation but the most likely venue is the 380-seat Trafalgar Studios for a July opening. No further casting has yet been confirmed.

Bloom has been eyeing legit projects for some time. He is keen to be part of a stage ensemble having worked exclusively on screen since being cast in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy almost immediately on leaving London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1999.

Duke of Yorks Theatre - You can also book tickets at this website.

Quote:

Anna Mackmin will direct David Storey’s 1969 drama, In Celebration. Previewing at the Duke of York’s Theatre from 5 July, In Celebration is currently booking until 15 September. Designs are by Lez Brotherson, with lighting by Mark Henderson, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound by John Leonard.

The cast includes Lynda Baron (Mrs Burnett), Orlando Bloom (Steven), Gareth Farr (Colin), Paul Hilton (Andrew) and Ciaran McIntyre (Reardon). Further casting for this production will be announced shortly.

Here is a review of the 1984 version of this play form the New York Times.

Quote:

''WHAT do you do with this feeling of disfigurement?'' asks a son in David Storey's play, ''In Celebration.'' The disfigurement to which the young man refers is that which parents can inflict, however innocently, upon their children. The question may be an eternal one - as eternal as Ibsenesque family dramas like ''In Celebration'' - but it is not asked or answered rhetorically by Mr. Storey. Though it takes a while to get there, his play leaves us with bruising images of adult children gasping to escape the crippling psychological stranglehold of Mom and Dad.
Mr. Storey wrote ''In Celebration'' early in his career - after the novel and film ''This Sporting Life'' but before his plays ''The Changing Room'' and ''Home.'' The Manhattan Theater Club's production - at the company's new second home downstairs at City Center - has been staged by Lindsay Anderson, who directed both the 1969 London premiere of ''In Celebration'' at the Royal Court and the 1975 screen version starring Alan Bates. At the M.T.C., Mr. Anderson has assembled an assured cast, led with bristling authority by his frequent film collaborator, Malcolm McDowell. The actors can't quite camouflage Mr. Storey's prosaic and humorless exposition, which accounts for the sleepy first act, but they strike hard once the characters reach the tense, alcohol-fueled climax of their long day's journey into night.
''In Celebration'' recounts a 24- hour reunion that occurs when three sons return to their Yorkshire row house to celebrate their parents' 40th wedding anniversary. The pixieish father (Robert Symonds), a coal miner nearing retirement, and the striving mother (Pauline Flanagan) had raised their boys to achieve ''higher things.'' But, as we soon learn, the sons have escaped the proletariat for the professional class only to drift into terminal alienation.
Though the father takes pride in his menial work, his children regard their own loftier careers as ''at the best a pastime, at the worst a sort of souless stirring of the pot.'' The angriest son, Andrew (Mr. McDowell), has thrown away his university legal training to become a cynical dilettante in abstract painting. Steven (Frank Grimes) is a once-promising writer who has just abandoned seven years of blocked effort on a single book. Colin (John C. Vennema), an automobile-factory labor negotiator and nominally the family's success story, is really just an empty suit, passionlessly enacting the rituals of the good life.
To explain how the sons ended up as they did - and how the parents unwittingly sealed their doom in childhood - Mr. Storey inevitably has to expose the family's darkest secrets, some of them contrived. Like angry English dramatists of the previous generation, the author also inveighs heavily against the empty values enshrined by bourgeois respectability. In his later plays, Mr. Storey has achieved a more documentary form of realism, devoid of the kitchen-sink commonplaces that pockmark ''In Celebration.'' Even here, however, his writing, if not his dramaturgy, is pungently authentic.
The play becomes unsettling once the sons must decide what to do with their pent-up bitterness. If Andrew wants to get revenge on his parents, Steven would rather destroy himself than reopen old wounds. Colin, the peacemaker, chooses to repress the past entirely. Yet Mr. Storey seems to be saying that none of these approaches is satisfactory. ''In Celebration'' ends with a Chekhovian vision of a family forever locked into the changeless cycle of its sad history.
In his staging, Mr. Anderson emphasizes the isolation of the characters. As the sons and parents circle each other in supposed celebration, they seem trapped in solitary cells of existence; there's little rapport or physical contact. Fittingly, the living room they inhabit is also a cell: As designed by John Lee Beatty and lighted by Dennis Parichy, it is a bleached-out, anonymous place suggesting the nothingness of the Northern England landscape outside.
The cast usually finds sharp details that enliven the writing's bleak palette. Mr. Grimes' blocked writer has the consumptive pallor and burning anguish of O'Neill's Edmond Tyrone, and Mr. Symonds's wheezing, well- meaning father seems both heroic and pathetic as he somewhat fondly reminisces about his half-century of drudgery in a 13-inch-high crevice beneath the earth. As the catalytic Andrew, Mr. McDowell anxiously jiggles the coins in his pocket, delivers his lines with sarcastic venom and constantly seems about to gore the parents he blames for everything that's gone wrong.
Even so, when the moment of truth finally comes, Andrew can't quite bring himself to settle the old scores: He freezes instead of exploding. While many family plays end with cathartic confrontations, ''In Celebration'' achieves its distinct chill by dramatizing feelings that are well beyond a playwright's power to resolve.
Yorkshire Reunion IN CELEBRATION, by David Storey; directed by Lindsay Anderson; set design, John Lee Beatty; costume design, Linda Fisher; lighting design, Dennis Parichy; sound design, Stan Metelits; production stage manager, Peggy Peterson. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, managing director. At City Center Theater, 131 West 55th Street. Steven ShawFrank Grimes Mr. ShawRobert Symonds Mrs. BurnettMargaret Hilton Mrs. ShawPauline Flanagan Andrew ShawMalcolm McDowell Colin ShawJohn C. Vennema

Hopefully someone here can see him in this and report back to us. If only i had the money to go to London.

Meluffy · 05-30-2007, 04:56 AM

awesome! i wish i could go!

**sweet_zelda** · 05-30-2007, 11:30 AM

Me, too, actually! That sounds like a pretty cool story.

trash addict · 05-31-2007, 01:09 AM

Thanks for starting the thread, Carm

Meluffy · 05-31-2007, 08:05 AM

actually i could go..maybe!

i have to see with a friend if we can go and i have to find when we could and where we can find find some good places!

**marae13** · 05-31-2007, 08:08 AM

hopefully someone can report about this when it opens

Vague_Disclaimer · 06-01-2007, 03:13 AM

I hope you can go Meluffy! If you do end up going i demand full details

Another update from Playbill

Quote:

Casting Complete for London Revival of In Celebration with Orlando Bloom

Casting is now complete for the upcoming London revival of David Storey's 1969 drama In Celebration, which will star screen actor Orlando Bloom.

Joining the previously announced Bloom (as Steven), Lynda Baron (Mrs. Burnett), Gareth Farr (Colin), Paul Hilton (Andrew) and Ciaran McIntyre (Reardon) will be Tim Healy (as Mr. Shaw) and Dearbhla Molloy (as Mrs. Shaw). Anna Mackmin will direct the production, which begins previews July 5 at the Duke of York's Theatre with an official opening July 12. Produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, the play is currently booking until Sept. 15.

In Celebration will feature designs by Lez Brotherston, lighting by Mark Henderson, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound by John Leonard.

The play, according to press notes, is described in this manner: "Three brothers — Andrew, Colin and Steven — return home to the northern roots of their childhood for a family reunion. Although they have returned to celebrate, the explosive complexities of family life and long-held grievances are unlikely to improve the chances of a decent party."

**Crystaline** · 06-01-2007, 11:51 PM

Go Orly on taking a break from the films and hitting the stage!

It's a nice change of pace for him.

luckyirishstar · 06-03-2007, 09:37 AM

i'm seriously thinking of going but wouldn't go by myself I would want to go with others...anyone care to go?

BYtheSEA · 06-03-2007, 09:58 PM

It's great that he's going to be on stage. It should be a really good experience for him.

There are only two downsides to it ... he probably won't be in any movies for awhile and I won't be able to see him on stage.

Maybe, if he's a hit, he will end up on Broadway. I have a better chance to go see him there than in England.

Vague_Disclaimer · 06-05-2007, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BYtheSEA (View Post)

There are only two downsides to it ... he probably won't be in any movies for awhile and I won't be able to see him on stage.

It's only a limited run though so he could be filming another movie as soon as Sepember/October.

'In Celebration' Official Website

luckyirishstar · 06-05-2007, 06:20 AM

*squeals* it's going to be running during my birthday the stupid week that I have off!!! I wish I knew more people who lived in the London, England area to stay with!

**sweet_zelda** · 06-05-2007, 12:04 PM

I think it's awesome, I'm just said I won't be able to see it...

TiNA 23 · 06-05-2007, 03:58 PM

I'm going to be in England during that time, so I am actually going to get to go

Im uber excited!!

wbjunkie · 06-08-2007, 12:47 PM

good for him... i'm sure he'll be great! i wish i could see it but i don't see myself going to England anytime soon.

those of you who do get to go, make sure you share, share, share....