September on the London Stage: Skylar Astin, Mark Rylance, Maria Friedman & More

September always marks an uptick in activity in any theater capital and that is doubly true of London this year, with the advent of fall bringing to the stage numerous Tony and Olivier Award winners and nominees and even a bearer of an Oscar. For more on the abundance on offer during the month ahead, read on.

Bronte Beat
Jane Eyre long ago entered the landscape as one of the most frequently adapted of all British novels. It’s therefore something of a surprise that it has taken a quarter-century for the 2000 Broadway musical of Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 classic to reach London, in this case Southwark Playhouse Elephant, opening September 8; Charlie Burn plays the orphaned heroine of the title opposite Ashley Gilmour as Rochester. “When [Burn] came in for her first audition in [co-creator] John [Caird’s] study, and I was on Zoom, it was like we just knew,” the show’s American co-director Megan McGinnis told Broadway.com in an interview. “Charlie has this depth of soul so that you care about her immediately and a quiet strength. On top of that, she has the ideal voice.” How does McGinnis feel about taking the show home, as it were, to the country where it is set? “We are presenting a very beloved novel to the people who love it most,” McGinnis acknowledged, adding dryly, “I try not to think about that too much.”

Tony Transfer
Kimberly Akimbo won five 2023 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and is getting a British airing at the Hampstead Theatre courtesy of director Michael Longhurst, who brought an earlier Broadway title, Caroline, or Change, to that same address; opening night is September 9. Playing Kimberly Levaco, the teenager whose accelerated aging drives the plot, is three-time Olivier winner Maria Friedman, here marking her first run in a musical new to London in over 20 years. Friedman saw Tony winner Victoria Clark as the Kimberly of the title when she was on Broadway directing the smash hit revival of Merrily We Roll Along. “I do remember thinking,” an ebullient Friedman told Broadway.com, “what a fantastically complex and beautiful role.” How does the material seem now that she is actually performing it? “It feels exactly right. It’s a miraculous partnership [between composer Jeanine Tesori and book writer David Lindsay-Abaire]. What a bloody unbelievable composer Jeanine is; she’s bad-ass. My partner [Paddington actor Adrian Der Gregorian] said he should sue the theater for physical abuse from smiling so much.”

Mixing It Up
Moliere’s Tartuffe remains a theatrical classic and is headed back to London in a new production starring Mark Rylance, who has three Tonys and an Oscar to his name; opening night at Marylebone Theatre is September 10. Retitled Tartuffe (Remixed), this new version from director-adaptor Darren Raymond refracts the enduring 1664 satire through a multicultural lens, with Rylance as a man of God called Pastor Blake who enters the lives of a Nigerian-Jamaican family in contemporary London. “The play is based on family and relationships and these are universal things no matter where you’re from,” said the eloquently spoken Raymond. And how does he respond to an acting legend heading his cast? “Mark’s really good at diversifying and saying, ‘we’re all equals here; what I’ve achieved doesn’t make me any better than you,’” continued Raymond. “He’s amazing.”

Gravity Revisited
Thelma and Louise might not be the first film you’d expect to find brought to the stage, but here Ridley Scott’s 1991 road movie is at the Young Vic, with Amy Lennox and Rachel Tucker as the BFFs played on screen by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon; Oscar winner Callie Khouri has done the musical’s book, and September 16 is opening night. “They’re feminist trailblazers,” co-star Tucker said of her attraction to the material. “These are women coming into their own and seeing what power they have without being nasty or evil.” Might the friendship on view be somewhat akin to Glinda and Elphaba in Wicked, a show Come From Away Olivier nominee Tucker knows well from playing Elphaba in London and on Broadway? “Absolutely, this feels like the modern-day equivalent.” As for how the hurtling finish of the movie will be realized onstage, an irrepressible Tucker said we’ll have to wait and see. “Think of it as defying gravity off a cliff,” the performer quipped, adding with a laugh. “I’m giving nothing away.”

London Awakening
Skylar Astin has long been drawn to Cabaret as a musical and to the idea of appearing onstage in London. Now, the Pitch Perfect star is ticking off two bucket list wishes at once as the latest Emcee in the ongoing West End revival of Cabaret. He joins Sarah Hyland (Just In Time) as Sally Bowles. The new headliners of Rebecca Frecknall’s much-laureled revival start September 21 at the Kit Kat Club. “I feel really fortunate that this production encourages you to bring your own lived experience” to the part, the charming Astin told Broadway.com. “Who would you be in the 1920s as [the characters] approach this horrifying time in Germany? The creative team comes at this with a fresh paint brush every time.” How does Astin feel about being in the U.K. contemporaneously with his onetime Spring Awakening colleague Jonathan Groff, who this fall is marking his own British stage debut at Stratford-upon-Avon in an all-male As You Like It? “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get there,” Astin said of the two shows’ competing performance schedules, “but we’ve been talking, and it’s nice to know he’s there if I need anything.”

Highest Standard
The life of the British economist John Meynard Keynes promises a heady night at the theater—and an invigorating one, as well—in the hands of playwright James Graham (Dear England), director Nicholas Hytner (Giant, Guys and Dolls) and leading man Rory Kinnear (Othello)—Olivier winners, all. Their new play The Standard of Living opens September 30 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The play tells of Keynes’s relationship with his ballerina wife Lydia Lopokova (here played by Russian dance superstar Natalia Osipova) against the backdrop of Britain’s intellectually vital Bloomsbury group. “They exist as a collective and wander in and out of each other’s lives like a happy tapestry,” said the immediately warm Naomi Frederick, who plays no less a defining Bloomsbury figure than Virginia Woolf. Frederick has been with Graham’s play across two workshops straight through to the present. At one point, that meant leaving a film set in Croatia at 7 p.m. one evening so as to be at a London hotel for a 10 a.m. readthrough the next day. “It was too good a piece, I just wanted to be there.” And now, with opening night approaching? “Lucky me," said the actress. "I’ve gone the whole way.”