Monday October 26 8:14 AM EDT
By Matt Wolf
LONDON (Variety) - Expect a spring-turned-summer of Brian Friel fever from April to July next year as Ireland mounts the first-ever nationwide 15-play festival devoted to the playwright, who turns 70 on Jan. 9 and is described as ``our greatest living dramatist'' by event organizer Noel Pearson.
``We have a great tradition in Ireland of honoring our dead; it's time to start honoring our living,'' says Pearson, who has known Friel for some 25 years and produced the imminent $12 million film version of the playwright's ``Dancing at Lughnasa.''
Pearson's Broadway producing credits include the Tony-winning ``Lughnasa'' and the tragically short-lived ``Wonderful Tennessee.'' In November 1999, he hopes to take ``Give Me Your Answer, Do!'' to New York's Roundabout Theater, directed by Robin Lefevre, who did the same play this spring in London.
Nine Dublin theaters are expected to get in on the Friel act, with the Abbey reviving four plays -- the little-seen ``The Freedom of the City,'' opening April 21, and then ``Lughnasa'' among them -- and the Gate remounting ``Aristocrats'' and ``Faith Healer,'' all in fresh productions.
Galway's Druid Theater Co. will contribute a new ``Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' and various London venues weigh in with, if all goes well, ``Volunteers'' (in the just-opened Gate Theater of London staging) and Friel's version of Turgenev's ``A Month in the Country.''
Any chance of a Friel world premiere? ``We're hoping,'' says Pearson. ``Brian says no, but I'm the eternal optimist.''
Those looking for a live glimpse of one family's newest contribution to the thespian arena will have to wait to see Beth Winslet, younger sister of ``Titanic'' star Kate, tread the boards.
Due to a viral infection, the 20-year-old actress has bowed out of the forthcoming Birmingham Repertory Theater production of Chekhov's ``Three Sisters,'' co-starring Alan Cox (son of ``Art's'' Brian) and Charles Dance and opening Nov. 3. Rachel Pickup -- herself the daughter of recent ``Amy's View'' co-star Ronald Pickup -- is the replacement.
All is not lost, however, on the notable-sibling front. Nick Grosso's ``Real Classy Affair,'' starring 28-year-old Joseph Fiennes, younger brother of Ralph, has extended its run a week at the Royal Court Theater Upstairs. It will now close Nov. 14.
The 100 ``most significant'' plays of the last 98 years will get an airing -- that's to say 45 minutes of excerpts and/or discussions -- as part of an ambitious series of early-evening Platform Performances to be held throughout 1999 at the Royal National Theater. The series itself is being billed as NT2000, as it trawls through dramatic high points of the 20th century on the eve of the 21st.
``The word was 'significant,' not 'great' or 'best,''' says Platforms manager and NT2000 producer Angus MacKechnie, explaining the inclusion on the list of ``The Mousetrap'' and Ray Cooney's ``Run for Your Wife'' alongside ``A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ``Waiting for Godot,'' ``Translations'' and current West End entries ``Closer'' and ``The Weir.''
The lineup kicks off Jan. 7 with ``Peter Pan,'' which, perhaps not so coincidentally, will be in revival on the Olivier stage the very night that the same auditorium hosts its tribute to the 1904 J.M. Barrie play. It ends in time for the millennium with ``The Weir,'' stopping en route at, among many others, ``Loot,'' James Baldwin's ``The Amen Corner'' and Howard Brenton's once-notorious ``The Romans in Britain.''
Where possible, MacKechnie is hoping to bring in alums of the original productions, either to discuss the lasting impact of the plays or perform a scene or two from them. John Stride and Edward Petherbridge may well reunite to honor Tom Stoppard's ``Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,'' premiered by them in 1966, just as Joan Plowright and playwright Arnold Wesker return to ``Roots,'' first planted (OK, staged) in 1959.
The sizable number of American works on the list -- ``Long Day's Journey Into Night,'' ``Bent,'' ``Angels in America,'' among many others -- has led MacKechnie to appeal to any of the play's originators who may be passing through London the day of that particular platform. (Paging Walter Matthau, the original Broadway co-star of ``The Odd Couple,'' which is number 52 on the list.)
``It's an afternoon's work for an honorarium fee'' of some $80, says MacKechnie, proceeding to bow to this city's ongoing clamor. ``If Nicole Kidman's still in town, she can have a go.''
Reuters/Variety