Theatre News

David Edgar's 'Iron Curtain Trilogy' revived for Berlin Wall anniversary

The trilogy – comprising ”The Shape of the Table”, ”Pentecost” and ”The Prisoner’s Dilemma” – has never before been performed in rep

Playwright David Edgar
Playwright David Edgar
© Dan Wooller

David Edgar's 'Iron Curtain' trilogy of plays, originally produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre, will be revived in London later this year to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The productions, which run at The Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone from 13 to 30 November 2014, are presented by American company Burning Coal and mark the first time the plays have been presented in rep.

The trilogy comprises The Shape of the Table (first produced at the National Theatre in 1990), Pentecost and The Prisoner's Dilemma (both written for the RSC), all of which deal with the end of the Cold War.

"The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall comes at a momentous and threatening moment for eastern Europe," Edgar said today.

"My three plays about the breaking of the Iron Curtain and its aftermath weren't conceived as a trilogy, but taken together I hope they pose challenging questions about the legacy of that event, now and in the future."

The Shape of the Table centres on the transition from communism to democracy. In Pentecost, which won the 1995 Evening Standard Best New Play award, the discovery of a fresco in a small church in the Balkans has the potential to change the history of European art. And The Prisoner’s Dilemma explores the delicate process of negotiating peace between a newly-independent post-Soviet government and an oppressed and militant Muslim minority.

Director Jerome Davis said: "The fall of the Iron Curtain is the most important event of our lifetime. It continues to play out in wondrous and sometimes terrible ways today. David's three plays collectively are, in my opinion, the greatest work of art yet created about that event."

The Berlin Wall officially fell on 9 November 1989. The 25th anniversary will be marked by events across Europe, including an illuminated, symbolic helium balloon "wall" being displayed along the former border.