Year: 1965
Title of the play: Trelawny of the ‘Wells’
Author: Arthur Wing Pinero
Director: Desmond O’Donovan
Others in the Cast: Albert Finney, Robert Stephens, Ian McKellen, Geraldine McEwan, Maggie Smith, Graham Crowden, Derek Jacobi, Ronald Pickup, Jeanne Watts, Billie Whitelaw, Louise Purnell
Company/Event: National Theatre Company
Theatre and location: Chichester Festival Theatre
Other productions of the same play: Old Vic, London
Plot summary: Rose Trelawny, a popular star, gives up the stage when she marries her sweetheart, Arthur Gower. She finds life with Arthur's grandfather and great-aunt, Sir William and Lady Tralfagar, unbearably dull and they detest her loud and unrestrained personality. Rose runs back to the theatre, abandoning Arthur, but cannot recapture the liveliness that had made her a star. Meanwhile, Arthur runs away to become an actor at the Bristol Old Vic. The problem is solved when Rose encounters Sir William again, and she reawakens his memory of admiring the great actor Edmund Kean as a young man. Sir William offers to help Rose's friend Tom Wrench, an aspiring playwright who dreams of staging plays in a more realist style than the melodramas that dominate the stage. Tom stages the play with Rose as the star, and her newfound seriousness fits his style perfectly. Tom secretly arranges for Arthur to play the leading male role, and the lovers are reunited on stage. - Wikipedia
Peth’s role: Ferdinand Gadd, a romantic tragedian, in love with Rose.
Reviews:
Production details: Here
and here
Related
links: Interview with the playwright – pdf
Gallery:
