Starring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley
By David Hirson
Directed by Matthew Warchus
American playwright David Hirson's rollicking 1991 play, La Bête, is a comic tour de force about Elomire (David Hyde Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist who loves only the theatre, and Valere (Mark Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself. When the fickle princess (Joanna Lumley) decides she’s grown weary of Elomire's royal theatre troupe, he and Valere are left fighting for survival as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown for the ages.
La Bête will star Tony and Olivier Award winner Mark Rylance (Jerusalem, Boeing-Boeing), Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce (Dr Niles Crane in Frasier) and BAFTA Award winner Joanna Lumley (Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous) and will be directed by the multi award-winning Matthew Warchus (The Norman Conquests, God of Carnage, Boeing-Boeing).
Mrs Warren's Profession lays bare the rampant hypocrisy and constrained morals of Victorian society.
Mrs Warren's daughter, Vivie, has never really known much about her mother. A prim young woman, Vivie has enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, a Cambridge education, a generous monthly allowance and now has ambitions to go into the law. Is it conceivable that all this privilege and respectability has been financed from the proceeds of the oldest profession? How will Vivie react when she finds out the awful truth about her mother's ill-gotten gains?
Shaw's provocative play was written in 1894 but banned from public performance by the Lord Chamberlain until the 1920s.
Mrs Waren's Profession stars Felicity Kendal in the title role. One of the UK's best loved actresses since her television hey day in The Good Life, Kendal has performed frequently on stage in productions including The Last Cigarette, The Vortex, Amy's View and Happy Days.
