Hollywood stars Calista Flockhart, Kathleen Turner, Jessica Lange and Edie Falco have all graced the West End stage in recent months, with more US exports scheduled to appear later this year.
“From an actor’s point of view, or at least this actor’s point of view, performing in London is the pinnacle,” says Edie, an Emmy Award winner for The Sopranos, who is performing in the West End production of the Eve Ensler comedy The Vagina Monologues. “The reverence the general populace has for theatre isn’t something that can be matched.”
In the autumn, veteran actress Jessica Lange received rave reviews for her performance in the revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. “I could have done this in New York,” says the Oscar winner. “But, I thought, ‘No, I’d rather do it in London.”
“London audiences will sit for three and a half hours and will listen to language, and they won’t fidget and check their messages,” says Jessica, who last appeared on the West End four years ago in A Streetcar Named Desire. “You feel like you can take chances and do things that might not fly quite so easily in New York.”
Jessica’s co-star in the nearly four-hour production of Long Day’s Journey was another Hollywood star, Paul Rudd of The Cider House Rules. Paul returned to London this summer to star alongside Rachel Weisz in Neil LaBute’s The Shape Of Things. “When I was going to acting school, the idea of coming and doing a play here was, I thought, just a dream,” says the actor.
The Mummy heart-throb Brendan Fraser too dreamed of stepping out on the West End stage. “It would fulfil an aspiration of mine, from when I was a little kid,” he says. “It’s the Mecca of acting.” Brendan’s long-held wish will come to fruition this autumn when he takes on Tennessee Williams’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.
Laurie Metcalf, an Emmy winner for the popular US sitcom Roseanne, makes her London debut in August. And US stars George Segal, Judd Hirsch, Richard Thomas, Joe Morton, Amy Irving and Anne Archer will all appear in the West End later this year.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
