October on the London Stage: Mark Rylance Leads a Classic, Adrien Brody Makes His London Debut and The Lehman Trilogy Returns

From name-heavy West End revivals to bracing new dramas, October in London is giving pride of place to the play. Offerings during the month ahead include several classic titles of ongoing relevance and two new plays in smaller auditoriums that look likely to have a sizable impact. Read on to discover more.

STATE OF CHASSIS
Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock remains one of the greatest Irish plays and is marking the centennial of its 1924 premiere with a starry West End revival, opening October 3 and directed by Tony winner Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage). Leading the production are visiting American performer J. Smith-Cameron (Succession) and three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance, while the supporting cast returns to the West End Irish actor Chris Walley, who won a 2019 Olivier for a revival of The Lieutenant of Inishmore—his first show out of drama school. He now revisits a classic he first performed when he was 16, graduating from the role of Joxer to schoolteacher Charles Bentham. “Ultimately, this play is about people living and fighting through adversity, and watching a family experience something like that is always relevant,” said Walley, throwing in some admiration for his leading man ("the only word for what Mark does is 'magic.'") As for the humor that courses through a sometimes-bleak text? “I think the greatest pieces of art are tragicomedy: Darkness doesn’t exist without light, and vice-versa.”

FLIGHT PATH
The studio theater at the top of the Royal Court’s Sloane Square home can sometimes be overlooked. Not likely now, given the premiere there on October 9 of Brace Brace, written by Oli Forsyth and boasting a dream cast: musicals regular Craige Els, 2023 Olivier winner Anjana Vasan (A Streetcar Named Desire) and Phil Dunster a.k.a. Jamie Tartt Jr. on Ted Lasso. Forsyth, who trained as an actor before shifting to playwriting, drew inspiration for Brace Brace from an attempted hijacking he experienced when he was 12 on board a plane from London to Nairobi. But his real concerns within the play extend well beyond this life-changing memory: “What happens to you doesn’t matter as much as how you process what has happened to you, so that you can have two people with radically different interpretations of the same event.” As for an onward life for Brace Brace in light of the talent involved? “I want this show to be seen by as many people as possible.”

MORE, MORE
The Lehman Trilogy won five 2022 Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Director, and is the epic drama that won’t stop giving. Already seen across three separate London engagements, the dynastic, centuries-spanning saga is returning to the Gillian Lynne Theatre, opening October 9 and this time starring John Heffernan, Howard W. Overshown and Aaron Krohn. “Every time I think, well maybe this is the last outing for it, I’m surprised and delighted to see [the play] back again,” said Ben Power, who won a Tony for adapting Stefano Massini’s original Italian script. Why such ongoing appeal? “At the center of the story is a family—siblings at the beginning but also parents and children. You dramatize a family and a society and as an audience you move between them.” The bravura nature of Sam Mendes’ staging surely helps. “You’re engaging with performers transforming in front of your eyes,” said Power, “and audiences have always loved that.”

DEAD MAN WALKING
The story of Nick Yarris, the Pennsylvania man wrongfully imprisoned for 22 years on death row, spawned a 2015 documentary, The Fear of 13. The story has since been adapted by American dramatist Lindsey Ferrentino into a new play opening October 10 at the Donmar Warehouse, with Oscar winner Adrien Brody in his London stage debut. Brody got the part, Ferrentino explained to Broadway.com, when she first offered him a film role before “very quickly doing a bait-and-switch” that led to this play. But does The Pianist star have the requisite theater chops? “Beyond, beyond, and I knew Adrien would based on his film work, which has such a wide, wide range.” Even better will be to experience the director Justin Martin’s production within the intimacy of the Donmar. “This play is made to be done in a space where the audience is implicated in the storytelling,” the playwright added. “There will be audience members literally an inch away from Adrien Brody, and I think that’s going to be really thrilling.”

MULTI-TASKING
Steve Coogan plays four roles, not the three taken onscreen by Peter Sellers, in the widely anticipated stage version of Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, co-adapted by Armando Iannucci and Olivier Award winner Sean Foley, with Foley also directing. An impressive supporting cast includes John Hopkins, Ben Turner and London’s Olivier-winning Aaron Burr, Hamilton alum Giles Terera. Why this film now? Kubrick’s singularly foreboding vision is “a story that never goes away,” said Foley, whose previous screen-to-stage transfers include (as writer-director) The Man in the White Suit and (as director only) The Ladykillers. Dr. Strangelove, he explained in an interview, "is not just a satire about the arms race and the military-industrial complex but about men and how they behave in public institutions, which again is perennially relevant. The great thing is that it’s funny, so while the intellect becomes depressed, the spirit can soar.” Opening night is October 29 at the Noel Coward Theatre.