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NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

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NTL 2025 A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois (Gillian Anderson). Photo: Johan Persson

Tag: Performing Arts

Operatif: Murder, Madness, and Brilliant Music

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck tells the tale of a soldier, who driven to madness by jealousy, murders his love and in reaction kills himself. Although the story is dark and disturbing, it is illuminated by Berg’s brilliant music and has become one of the few 20th Century works to enter the repertory. 

In this lecture, Victoria Bond will discuss the remarkable way the composer uses his intricately organized music to express a rich emotional palette; delving into the intricacies of twelve-tone atonal music. 

National Theatre Live: A Screening of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, in a new version by Martin Crimp

James McAvoy (X-Men, Atonement) returns to the stage in an inventive new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, broadcast live to cinemas from the West End in London.

Fierce with a pen and notorious in combat, Cyrano almost has it all – if only he could win the heart of his true love Roxane. There’s just one big problem: he has a nose as huge as his heart. Will a society engulfed by narcissism get the better of Cyrano – or can his mastery of language set Roxane’s world alight?

Edmond Rostand’s masterwork is adapted by Martin Crimp, with direction by Jamie Lloyd (Betrayal). This classic play will be brought to life with linguistic ingenuity to celebrate Cyrano’s powerful and resonant resistance against overwhelming odds.

National Theatre Live: A Screening of Present Laughter by Noël Coward

Matthew Warchus directs Andrew Scott (BBC’s Sherlock, Fleabag) in Noël Coward’s provocative comedy Present Laughter. 

As he prepares to embark on an overseas tour, star actor Garry Essendine’s colourful life is in danger of spiralling out of control. Engulfed by an escalating identity crisis as his many and various relationships compete for his attention, Garry’s few remaining days at home are a chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching.

Captured live from The Old Vic in London, Present Laughter is a giddy and surprisingly modern reflection on fame, desire and loneliness.

National Theatre Live: A Screening of All My Sons by Arthur Miller

Broadcast live from The Old Vic in London, Academy Award-winner Sally Field (Steel Magnolias, Brothers & Sisters) and Bill Pullman (The Sinner, Independence Day) star in Arthur Miller’s blistering drama All My Sons. 

America, 1947. Despite hard choices and even harder knocks, Joe and Kate Keller are a success story. They have built a home, raised two sons and established a thriving business.

But nothing lasts forever and their contented lives, already shadowed by the loss of their eldest boy to war, are about to shatter. With the return of a figure from the past, long buried truths are forced to the surface and the price of their American dream is laid bare.

Jeremy Herrin (NT Live: This House) directs the cast, which also includes Jenna Coleman (Victoria), and Colin Morgan (Merlin) alongside Bessie Carter, Oliver Johnstone, Kayla Meikle and Sule Rimi.

Hamptons Film presents NOW SHOWING: Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

Shortly after receiving the news of a fatal diagnosis in early 2015, world-renowned British neurologist, historian, physician, and author Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of lengthy filmed interviews to discuss the story of his life. Beginning with the difficulties of his childhood relationship with a schizophrenic older brother and growing up as a queer man in 1950s England, Sacks charts his journey towards becoming one of the foremost chroniclers of the human mind. Interweaving these interviews with recollections from his longtime partner, closest friends, family, and colleagues, director Ric Burns creates a moving portrait of one of the 21st century’s greatest minds.

This film won the #HIFF27 Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Director: Ric Burns.

Running time: 110 minutes

Hamptons Film presents NOW SHOWING: Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

Shortly after receiving the news of a fatal diagnosis in early 2015, world-renowned British neurologist, historian, physician, and author Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of lengthy filmed interviews to discuss the story of his life. Beginning with the difficulties of his childhood relationship with a schizophrenic older brother and growing up as a queer man in 1950s England, Sacks charts his journey towards becoming one of the foremost chroniclers of the human mind. Interweaving these interviews with recollections from his longtime partner, closest friends, family, and colleagues, director Ric Burns creates a moving portrait of one of the 21st century’s greatest minds.

This film won the #HIFF27 Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Director: Ric Burns.

Running time: 110 minutes

Operatif: Exploring Puccini’s Operatic Style

Puccini’s Turandot is a classic example of the height of the Italian romantic style – through-composed opera with lush orchestral textures, demanding larger voices to declaim highly emotional themes.  Most of Puccini’s operas are truly verismo operas in their conception, like La bohème and Tosca, recounting in ‘real time’ tales of love and sometimes violence rather than the mythological and real kings and queens or counts and countesses of the earlier operas. Turandot breaks the mold and is based on a Persian myth which Puccini sets in China. Here Puccini fits the ancient tale of the Princess Turandot in the operatic sound-world that he helped propel. Join pianist Derrick Goff and tenor Cameron Schutza as we explore how to listen to this changing operatic style. 

Please join us for the Season Opener Breakfast Reception at 11:30am in the Wasserstein Gallery prior to the lecture-recital at 12pm.

JDT Lab: Kingdom of the Spirits by JZ Holden

Directed by Amanda Kate Joshi

KINGDOM OF THE SPIRITS is about a Jewish nightclub owner in Berlin between 1938 and 1945. Her longtime lover Heinz, who is now a powerful Nazi General, comes to her club one evening in 1938 to tell her that she must leave Berlin, that he can no longer protect her, but that he has created a plan for her escape and survival.

She agrees to go along with it only if he will promise to protect her family and guarantee that no harm will come to them. He agrees, and a deal with the devil is struck. The political climate of war and its psychological landscape is the place where Kingdom of the Spirits takes place, misinformation is rife, collaboration and collusion are temptations too difficult to dismiss and death is one poor decision away.

Kingdom of the Spirits is a story about the price we pay for forbidden love, betrayal, political complicity, and ultimately survival.

Operatif Lecture with Victoria Bond

Pre-opera lecture on Massenet’s Manon.

An Enduring Love Story 

The most popular of his operas, Massenet’s “Manon” is regularly performed around the world. Its roles are a dramatic and musical feast and the all-star cast in the upcoming Metropolitan Opera production should make for a thrilling performance. I look forward to sharing with you the story behind the legendary heroine who fascinated not only Massenet, but authors, artists and other composers, including Giacomo Puccini.

National Theatre Live: Hansard

Hansard
by Simon Wood

Hansard; noun
The official report of all parliamentary debates.

See two-time Olivier Award winners, Lindsay Duncan (Birdman, About Time) and Alex Jennings (The Lady in the Van, The Queen), in this brand-new play by Simon Wood, broadcast live from the National Theatre in London.

It’s a summer’s morning in 1988 and Tory politician Robin Hesketh has returned home to the idyllic Cotswold house he shares with his wife of 30 years, Diana. But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital scrapping quickly turns to blood-sport.

Don’t miss this witty and devastating portrait of the governing class, directed by Simon Godwin (NT Live: Antony & Cleopatra, Twelfth Night) and part of National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday season.