1st Night Photos: Pike's Summer & Cryptic Cattrall

Two American plays received major revivals with big-name leading ladies this week: Tennessee Williams’ rarely performed 1947 drama Summer and Smoke opened with ex-Bond girl and Hitchcock Blonde Rosamund Pike last night (18 October 2006, previews from 11 October) at the West End’s Apollo Theatre while, the night before (17 October, previews from 12 October), Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall (who made her London stage debut last year in Peter Hall’s revival of Whose Life Is It Anyway?) faced the critics in David Mamet’s elliptical 1995 three-hander The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse.

In Adrian Noble’s production of Summer and Smoke (See News, 15 Aug 2006), Pike is minister’s daughter Alma Winemiller, who finds her youthful passions rekindled with the return of the neighbour’s hard-living prodigal son John Buchanan, played by American Chris Carmack, best known from TV’s The OC. The cast also features Talulah Riley and Christopher Ravenscroft.

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For 1st Night Photos, our Whatsonstage.com photographer was on hand at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, for the curtain call of Summer and Smoke and at the Embassy Club for the post-show party with the company. Other first night guests included Brenda Blethyn, Tim McInnerny, Twiggy, Leigh Lawson, film director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice), playwright/director James Phillips (The Rubinstein Kiss) Natalie Walter (most recently seen in Piano/Forte) and designer David Farley (Sunday in the Park with George, Little Shop of Horrors).

In Mamet’s 65-minute The Cryptogram, directed by Josie Rourke, Cattrall co-stars with Douglas Henshall. Cattrall plays Donny, mother to 11-year-old, a part shared on rotation between Oliver Coopersmith, Joe Ashman and Adam Brown. For 1st Night Photos, our Whatsonstage.com photographer went backstage to meet the cast after their opening night performance at the Donmar Warehouse, and also caught up with Sir Peter Hall.

TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF THE CRYPTOGRAM 1st NIGHT PHOTOS,
JUST CLICK ON THE "NEXT >" LINKS BELOW THE FOLLOWING FRAME.

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