2010-11 Season
Events begin at 7 p.m. TIcket price is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, and $10 for students.
Mar. 25, FRANKENSTEIN
Danny Boyle’s new production of Frankenstein, a play by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley, will be broadcast from the National’s Olivier Theatre.
July 8, THE CHERRY ORCHARD
NT Associate Director Howard Davies, whose recent productions of Russian plays have earned huge critical acclaim, directs Chekhov's classic.
More about the
National Theatre
It is over four decades since the National Theatre Company, under the direction of Laurence Olivier, gave its first-ever performance.
Since the opening night of Hamlet starring Peter O'Toole on Oct. 22, 1963, the National Theatre has produced over 600 plays. The company would not find a permanent home until the opening of Denys Lasdun's National Theatre building in 1976.
For more about the National Theatre, please visit their website.
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'Frankenstein' shows Mar. 25
Oscar-winner Danny Boyle (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire) returns to the theater to direct this visionary new production, the seventh event in the National Theatre Live 2010-2011 series, which shows at the Newport Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. Friday, March 25. Nick Dear wrote the play, based on the renowned novel by Mary Shelley.
Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.
Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.
Advisory: Due to the mature content, this production is suitable for viewers aged 15 years and older.
Image credit (left column): Dissection of the axilla by Joseph Maclise, courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.
'The Cherry Orchard' is up next on July 8
Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" portrays the social climate of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, when the aristocrats and landowning gentry were losing their wealth and revealing themselves to be incapable of coping with their change in status.
 The National Theatre's version, set for 7 p.m. July 8 at the Newport Performing Arts Center, is directed by NT Associate Director Howard Davies, whose recent productions of Russian plays (including Philistines, Burnt by the Sun and T he White Guard) have earned huge critical acclaim. Zoë Wanamaker will play Madame Ranevskaya.
The tragedy of the situation in which Mrs. Ranevsky and her family find themselves is derived primarily from their inability to adapt to their new social and personal responsibilities. No longer able to live on the labor provided by the serfs (slaves) who worked the land, many wealthy landowners, like Ranevsky, lost their fortunes and their estates.
Though he intended the play to be a comedy, when it was first produced by the Moscow Art Theater on January 17, 1904, producer Konstantin Stanislavsky insisted it should be played as a tragedy. Chekhov fought against this portrayal. Many Socialist Soviet critics in Russia after the Revolution of 1917 tried to interpret this as an indictment of Russian society at the turn of the century; however, it is unlikely that Chekhov meant this play as an attack on the society of which he was so much a part.
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