London theater guide: September 2024

The Last Word

When: September 5 to 21
Where: Marylebone Theatre, 35 Park Rd, NW1 6XT
You can buy tickets at by clicking here.

After a successful run of the play “White Factory” based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s text and the Off West End 2023 award for Best Production, director Maxim Didenko returns to London with a new project – the documentary play “The Last Word”. The production, starring Alisa Khazanova, is based on the court speeches of women convicted by Russian law for political reasons.

“The Last Word” will combine the monologues of several brave women who were not afraid to confront the authoritarian regime in Russia – Sasha Skochilenko, Nadia Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, Alla Gutnikova, Zafira Sautieva – into a single story about the human struggle against an inhuman system. In addition, the audience will hear another, historical monologue: the director has included in the play a court speech by Natalia Gorbanevskaya, a Soviet dissident and participant in the “demonstration of the seven” on Red Square against the introduction of troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The production had its world premiere at the Maxim Gorky Theater in Berlin back in December 2022. Maxim Gorky Theater in Berlin back in December 2022 – since then, for example, one of the heroines of The Last Word, the artist and activist Sasha Skochilenko, has been released as part of a historic prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.

Waiting for Godot

When: September 13 to December 14
Where: Theatre Royal Haymarket, 18 Suffolk St, SW1Y 4HT
To buy tickets go to link.

Waiting for Godot, the iconic absurdist theater text by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, will be brought to the London stage in a new adaptation directed by James MacDonald, known for his productions of contemporary European drama. The new reading of Beckett’s classic text, which will premiere this fall, will star Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati, winners of the prestigious BAFTA award.

Beckett spent most of his life in Paris, and wrote in both English and French – the play “Waiting for Godot” was no exception. The author presented the text, after which he gained worldwide fame and the title of one of the main playwrights of the XX century, in 1949: against the backdrop of turbulent post-war time Beckett created an existential-ethical parable. The main characters of the work – Vladimir and Estragon – are literally bound in time and space, waiting for a certain Godot, who, as it seems to them, will bring meaning to their faceless existence and protect them from external threats.

It is worth noting that the play “Waiting for Godot” was first presented to the British public back in 1955. At that time, the play was marked by very unflattering reviews: critics said that the author is trying to “turn the superficial into the sublime” with a lot of ambiguities and puzzles. However, since then, much has changed in theater culture – Beckett himself, among other things, identified new trends in dramaturgy – the lack of a “large” plot, luxurious scenery and a large number of actors.

House

When: September 26 to September 28
Where: Barbican Centre, Silk St, Barbican, EC2Y 8DS
Details and tickets – here.

As part of its European tour, the National Theatre de la Colline from Paris will perform at the Barbican Center at the end of September. The multinational team of artists will present a large-scale production based on the documentary trilogy “Home” by Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai.

For 16 years – from 1980 to 2006 – the director shot a trilogy about a house in West Jerusalem and its changing inhabitants: Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis. In April this year, a stage adaptation of The House premiered in Paris – directed, again, by Amos Gitai. The theatrical version is built in the format of multilingual dialog between actors and musicians from around the world – Israel, Palestine, Iran, France, Great Britain and Germany. According to Gitai’s idea, “Home” is an attempt to accept the present, to reflect on the future, and to remember the past.

Fiddler on the Roof

When: Before 28 September
Where: Regent’s Park Theatre, The Regent’s Park, Inner Cir, NW1 4NU
Tickets by link.

With just under a month to go until the end of the season at the open-air theater in Regent’s Park, it’s a great excuse to catch this summer’s sure-fire theatrical hit, Fiddler on the Roof, a play whose title refers to Marc Chagall’s painting The Fiddler.

“Fiddler on the Roof” is one of Broadway’s most famous musicals, created in 1964 to reflect the tragedy of the Holocaust through the story of the earlier persecution of the Jewish people. The play is based on a short story by Jewish writer Sholom Aleichem and tells the story of Jewish life in right-bank Ukraine. The action unfolds in Anatevka – today a small settlement in the Kiev region – at the beginning of the 20th century. It is noteworthy that today on the territory of Anatevka there is a social-adaptation center for refugees from eastern Ukraine, built on the money of the Jewish community.

Director Jordan Fain’s decision to stage this play on an opener is no accident: on a stage without a roof as such, surrounded by a dark forest, the vulnerability of the Jewish community to the impending pogroms administered by the Czarist government is shown. Compared to 1964, when the musical was first presented, today Fiddler on the Roof is seen as a reflection on forced immigration and flight.

The Grapes of Wrath

When: until September 14
Where: National Theatre, SE1 9PX
To book tickets go to by clicking here.

Another must-see play in London in September is The Grapes of Wrath, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Director Carrie Cracknell’s new adaptation of the epic novel, which tells the story of life in America’s heartland states during the Great Depression, is characterized by a close documentary style in its attempt to capture a sense of hope for a better future in a time of utter despair.

Together with the characters in the production – the Joad family, led by Tom, who have returned from prison after serving time for murder – the audience will travel from their native Oklahoma to California in search of a better life. Throughout their journey west, they encounter exploitation by landowners, hostility from the police, poverty, hunger, and the death of loved ones. Conversations among themselves, as well as with other migrants, are filled with reflections on God and godlessness, the meaning of good and evil, which seem especially relevant against the backdrop of a broken world through which the Joad family is stepping firmly toward their “tomorrow’s happiness,” despite the vicissitudes of an unjust system.