#*theatre

King Lear curtain call

William Shakespeare's King Lear (directed and played by Sir Kenneth Branagh) at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End, October 22 - November 2 2023.

Playing from October 21 - December 9 2023, 50 performances only. Ken (King Lear) is joined by Mara Allen as Curan, Deborah Alli as Goneril, Raymond Anum as Burgundy, Melanie‑Joyce Bermudez as Regan (RADA graduate 2023, professional debut), Doug Colling as Edgar, Dylan Corbett‑Bader as France, Eleanor de Rohan as Kent, Chloe Fenwick‑Brown as Oswald (RADA graduate 2023, professional debut), Joseph Kloska as Gloucester, Corey Mylchreest as Edmund, Hughie O'Donnell as Cornwall, Caleb Obediah as Cornwall, Jessica Revell as Cordelia / The Fool (RADA graduate 2023).

Anson Mount on theatre roles he'd like to play

When Anson was at Dragon Con in September 2022 promoting Star Trek: Stange New Worlds, a fan in the audience asked him what theatre roles he's always wanted to play.

Anson mentioned Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov (the role of Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a country doctor), and The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley (the role of De Flores, servant to Vermandero). The fan also brought up Shakespeare's Macbeth and Anson said he's played the role of Malcolm (Elder son of Duncan, king of Scotland) before.

In 2020 Anson played Uncle Vanya's Dr. Astrov in a virtual theatre production of the play (gifs here and here).

Uncle Vanya portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Two friends - Vanya, brother of the professor’s late first wife, who has long managed the estate, and Astrov, the local doctor - both fall under Yelena’s spell, while bemoaning the ennui of their provincial existence.

The Changeling is about young Beatrice who is in love with a visiting nobleman, Alsemero. However, her father has already arranged her marriage to Alonzo, another nobleman. Desperate to be with her love, Beatrice enlists the help of De Flores, a cunning but ugly servant, a deceptive man obsessed with her and determined to claim her virtue. While she initially resists him, Beatrice is drawn into lustful complicity with De Flores, and together they set in motion a chain of love, lust, madness, and death.