Roger Rees Makes UK Stage Comeback in GodotDate: 23 November 2009
Roger Rees, best remembered to UK theatregoers for his title role in the original production of The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby, will return to the London stage after an absence of more than 20 years to star opposite Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot.
When accepting a Special Award at today’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards Ceremony (See Today’s Other News), McKellen confirmed that the production will return in the new year (dates tbc) to the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket, where it finished its first extended season in August (See The Goss, 13 Nov 2009).
He went on to reveal that, while he will reprise his role as Estragon, Rees will take over as Vladimir from Patrick Stewart, who is unavailable because “he’s booked up like an opera singer”. McKellen urged the star-studded audience to “come and buy a ticket” for Rees’ “overdue” return to the London stage.
Rees and McKellen previously worked together at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where Rees was a regular for two decades until 1985, appearing in myriad productions including Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Suicide, Major Barbara, Three Sisters, The Duchess of Malfi and The Boyfriend, as well as Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s original 1980 two-part production of Charles Dickens Nicholas Nickleby.
The last transferred in 1982 to Broadway, winning Rees the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. In more recent years, the Welshman – who now resides in the States and who became a US citizen in 1989 - has appeared on Broadway in Uncle Vanya, The Rehearsals and Indiscretions. His other credits include: on stage, the premiere of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, Cymbeline, The End of the Day and A Man of No Importance; and on screen, Cheers, The Ebony Tower, Robin Hood and The West Wing. He also served as artistic director of the esteemed Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts from 2004 to 2007.
In Beckett’s 1955 classic, Estragon and Vladimir are two tramps who pass the time by a deserted road as they wait for the mysterious Godot. In Mathias’ original staging of the play, which came to the Haymarket following a regional tour, McKellen and Stewart were joined y Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup as Pozzo and Lucky. The production is designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, with lighting by Paul Pyant.
Beyond a return to the Haymarket, McKellen revealed that there are plans for an international future for Waiting for Godot, including dates at the Moscow Arts Theatre. In his acceptance speech for the Standard’s Special Award, presented in recognition of his contribution to British theatre, McKellen said that he wanted to revisit Waiting for Godot because it had been “the most joyful professional experience I’ve ever had. When the last night came, I blubbed in the wings, which I’ve never done before.”
- by Terri Paddock
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