Cate Blanchett to Star in Big and Small at London’s Barbican Theatre

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will star in a production of Botho Strauss’ Big and Small (Gross und Klein) at London’s Barbican Theatre. The English language translation, by Martin Crimp, is a production of Sydney Theatre Company of which Blachett is co-artistic director. Performances begin on April 13, with opening night following on April 14. The limited engagement concludes April 29. Benedict Andrews directs.

In addition to Blanchett, Big and Small will star Lynette Curran, Anita Hegh, Belinda McClory, Josh McConville, Robert Menzies, Katrina Milosevic, Yalin Ozucelik, Richard Piper, Richard Pyros, Sophie Ross, Chris Ryan, Christopher Stollery and Martin Vaughan.

Blanchett is an Oscar winner for The Aviator, and a nominee for Elizabeth, Notes on a Scandal, I’m Not There and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Among her many other films are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Babel, Hanna, Veronica Gueron, Bandits and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Her recent notable stage roles include A Streetcar Named Desire and Hedda Gabler.

First staged in 1978, Big and Small whisks audiences down a rabbit hole and into a curious Wonderland-like world where Lotte (Blanchett) is always trying to fit in. Following a break-up with her husband, Lotte finds herself a stranger to her own society and embarks on a search for human connection and a quest for belonging. At each stage in her journey she has unusual encounters with different people – strangers and acquaintances, family members, an old friend, but in this comedy of tragic solitude, reality itself keeps changing and Lotte becomes increasingly alienated from a culture she struggles to recognise. Like Carroll’s Alice, sometimes Lotte is too big for her surroundings and sometimes too small to be noticed within them.

The Big and Small creative team includes set designer Johannes Schütz, costume designer Alice Babidge, lighting designer Nick Schlieper and composer/sound designer Max Lyandvert.