Some of the best of London theater will broadcast live via satellite as the production is happening and return to the big screen of Damarscotta’s Lincoln Theater this fall.  September alone feature three exciting productions.

Julie, featuring Vanessa Kirby (BAFTA Award-winning actress for her portrayal of Princess Margaret in The Crown) will be broadcast live on Thursday,  Sept. 6 at 2 p.m. from the National Theatre. This new version of August Strindberg’s play Miss Julie, written by Polly Stenham, remains shocking and fiercely relevant in its new setting of contemporary London. Wild and newly single, Julie throws a late-night party. In the kitchen, Jean and Kristina clean up as the celebration heaves above them. Crossing the threshold, Julie initiates a power game with Jean – which rapidly descends into a savage fight for survival in this 90-minute tour de force.

Perhaps Shakespeare’s most popular play, Romeo and Juliet, comes to the big screen in a captured live production from the Royal Shakespeare Company on Thursday, Sept. 13 with shows at 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m..  (Feel free to join the Lincoln Academy sophomores for the early morning show!) Set in a world very much like our own, this Romeo and Juliet is about a generation of young people born into violence and ripped apart by the bitter divisions of their parents. The most famous story of love at first sight explodes with intense passion and an irresistible desire for change but leads all too quickly to heartbreaking consequences. What if your first true love was someone you’d been told you must hate?  Come explore in this contemporary re-setting of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Then, on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 2 p.m., the great Ian McKellen returns in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” in a live broadcast from London’s West End as part of National Theatre Live. Chichester Festival Theatre’s production received five-star reviews for its sell-out run and transferred to the West End for a limited season. Jonathan Munby directs this ‘nuanced and powerful’ (The Times) contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.  Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, King Lear sees two aging fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them.  Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.

Tickets are $15/adults, $13/Lincoln Theater members, $5/youth 18 and under. They are available in advance at the Lincoln Theater office 563-3424 or on the day of the screening starting one hour before.

 

These three September plays are just a start.  An additional four live productions from the National Theatre are screening this fall.  Complete details can be found on the Lincoln Theater website, lcct.org. Come experience why all the world is a stage.