Year: 2009
Title of the play: Lost in the Stars
Author: Maxwell Anderson, based on the novel Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (book and lyrics); music by Kurt Weill.
Director: Jude Kelly
Others in the Cast: Clive Rowe, Josie Benson, Tsakane Maswanganyi, Cornelius Macarthy
Company/Event:
Theatre and location: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Other productions of the same play:
Plot summary: A Zulu village minister, Stephen Kumalo's son, Absalom, left home for work in the mines but has disappeared in Johannesburg. Kumalo searches for him, only to learn that Absalom has been arrested for shooting a wealthy white man during a botched robbery. In effect, it's the story of the Prodigal Son who doesn't return. Summary from Art & Seek
Peth’s role: James Jarvis
Reviews:
Rowe as Kumalo developed a deeply moving relationship with James
Jarvis, a crucial non-singing role here portrayed by Edward Petherbridge with a depth of emotional characterisation
that lifted the second act to the high standards of the music-rich first. Their
relationship rang entirely true thanks to the humanity brought to bear by both
actors. Stephen Graham in Musical Criticism
If
one wondered why Clive Rowe had been cast as Stephen Kumalo when this and so
much else in the score lies too low for him, the answer came in that final
scene when he and the wonderful Edward Petherbridge stunned us into a numbed
silence as the seeds of reconciliation were tentatively, painfully, sown. - Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 25 June 2009
As
for Rowe’s nemesis, an urbane but dogmatic champion of white supremacy, Edward
Petherbridge injected depth and humanity into a slightly underwritten character
whose worldview is transformed at the close. - Clive Davis, The Times, June 25, 2009
Other reviews:
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