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Korea Herald
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Interview: Lee Young-ae on how antihero 'Hedda' brought her back to stage after 30 years
'We all carry a little bit of Hedda within us,' Lee says In a theatrical coincidence that has stirred anticipation among theatergoers, two major Korean productions of "Hedda Gabler" have been going head to head this spring. Just a day before the National Theater Company of Korea's production at the Myeongdong Theater in central Seoul opened on May 8, the LG Arts Center Seoul's version of Henrik Ibsen's famous psychological drama premiered May 7 with Lee Young-ae in titular role. Directed by Jun In-chul and based on Richard Eyre's contemporary adaptation, the LG Arts Center production transposes Hedda Gabler into the present day. It takes "a lighter, more psychologically accessible approach" to a story of a beautiful upper-class woman disillusioned after an impulsive marriage to an ordinary middle-class man, who returns from her honeymoon only to take her own life within two days. 'I didn't want to play someone just like me -- there's no thrill in that. There's more joy when I step into something different,' Lee said in an interview Tuesday, reflecting on her decision to take on the role of the manipulative, enigmatic antihero. "I read a review where a therapist said many of her clients reminded her of Hedda. That made me think -- even if we seem normal on the outside, maybe we all carry a little bit of Hedda within us. This production is my way of exploring that on stage." Her goal, Lee explained, was not to make Hedda overly tragic or aggressive. 'She's sensitive, but soft, too -- like someone who could live in any house, in any neighborhood,' she said. The show's promotional poster shows the actor smiling sweetly, but Lee said that Hedda's shadows lie just beneath the surface of innocence. Best known for her roles in Park Chan-wook's 'Lady Vengeance' and the globally beloved drama 'Jewel in the Palace,' she last performed in theater in 1993 in a small production at Seoul Arts Center. Lee said her return to the stage after three decades came with the right role at the right time. Lee credited her decision to return to live performance to her mentor, professor Kim Mi-hye, a renowned Ibsen scholar and her doctoral adviser at Hanyang University's Department of Theater and Film. 'Professor Kim had introduced me to many plays over the years and once said, 'If you ever return to theater, Hedda might suit you.'' The idea took root. After watching Jeon Do-yeon in Simon Stone's hit Korean production of "The Cherry Orchard" last year, Lee felt the pull of the stage more strongly than ever. 'I was approached for a different production (at the LG Arts Center). I guess I also had this desire to take the role of Hedda,' Lee said. 'Now that I'm in my 50s, having gone through childbirth and parenting, I feel I've gained the emotional depth that this character demands.' She admitted that 'the desire came with a heavier burden on the shoulders' than she expected -- but added that she has enjoyed every moment of it.
The Irish Sun
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Who is Mark Bonnar's wife Lucy and when did she marry the Traitors and Line of Duty star?
LUCY Gaskell is an actress who has appeared on several of the UK's biggest shows. Her husband, Mark Bonnar, will be appearing on the Advertisement 3 Lucy Gaskell is married to Line of Duty actor Mark Bonnar Credit: Instagram/@ 3 Lucy portrayed Kirsty Clements in Casualty Becoming an actress Lucy was born on July 10, 1980, and studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1998. She made her professional debut in a production of The Cherry Orchard which toured the UK over the summer of 2003. The actress met Lucy became known for her role in the BBC drama Cutting It, where her portrayal of Ruby Ferris earned her the Best Newcomer award from the Royal Television Society. Advertisement Read More on TV news She rocketed to fame as Kirsty Clements in Lucy's life off-screen Lucy married Mark on December 28, 2007, and shares two children with him. Martha, their first child, was born in July 2011 and Samuel was born in June 2015. Outside of her work on-screen, Lucy is an ambassador for Women's Aid - a charity that supports Advertisement Most read in News TV Lucy's celebrity husband Richard Mark Bonnar is one of the most prolific actors of He has also appeared in Vera, Grantchester, Case Histories, Doctor Who and Paradox. Claudia Winkleman reveals BBC bosses have slapped her with a big rule ahead of first ever Celebrity Traitors The star is known to lend his voice to Mark will appear in the first series of Celebrity Traitors in 2025, alongside fellow actors Tameka Empson and Celia Imrie. Advertisement They will be joined by singers A slew of comedians including Nick Mohammed, Sports star Celebrity Traitors will begin broadcasting in the Autumn and will begin filming over the summer. Advertisement 3 Mark Bonnar will be competing for the huge prize on The Traitors Credit: Getty Images
The Sun
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Who is Mark Bonnar's wife Lucy and when did she marry the Traitors and Line of Duty star?
LUCY Gaskell is an actress who has appeared on several of the UK's biggest shows. Her husband, Mark Bonnar, will be appearing on the celebrity version of The Traitors alongside many famous faces - including a Hollywood actress and an Olympian. 3 3 Becoming an actress Lucy was born on July 10, 1980, and studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1998. She made her professional debut in a production of The Cherry Orchard which toured the UK over the summer of 2003. The actress met Mark Bonnar on the set of her debut play and started dating him that year. Lucy became known for her role in the BBC drama Cutting It, where her portrayal of Ruby Ferris earned her the Best Newcomer award from the Royal Television Society. She rocketed to fame as Kirsty Clements in Casualty and has continued to land roles in Holby City, Being Human and Doctor Who. Lucy's life off-screen Lucy married Mark on December 28, 2007, and shares two children with him. Martha, their first child, was born in July 2011 and Samuel was born in June 2015. Outside of her work on-screen, Lucy is an ambassador for Women's Aid - a charity that supports survivors of domestic violence. Lucy's celebrity husband Richard Mark Bonnar is one of the most prolific actors of British TV and is most known for his roles as Max in the drama Guilt and Duncan Hunter in Shetland. He has also appeared in Vera, Grantchester, Case Histories, Doctor Who and Paradox. Claudia Winkleman reveals BBC bosses have slapped her with a big rule ahead of first ever Celebrity Traitors The star is known to lend his voice to video games too and has appeared in Battlefield 1 and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Mark will appear in the first series of Celebrity Traitors in 2025, alongside fellow actors Tameka Empson and Celia Imrie. They will be joined by singers Paloma Faith, Cat Burns and Charlotte Church, as well as Olympian Tom Daley and broadcasters Stephen Fry, Kate Garraway, Clare Balding and Jonathan Ross. A slew of comedians including Nick Mohammed, Joe Wilkinson, Niko Omilana, Alan Carr and Lucy Beaumont have also signed onto the show. Sports star Joe Marler and historian David Olusoga are both scheduled to appear on the show too. Celebrity Traitors will begin broadcasting in the Autumn and will begin filming over the summer. 3
Washington Post
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Andrew Scott and Hugh Bonneville lead dueling takes on ‘Uncle Vanya'
A half dozen or more Chekhov plays have hit major stages this spring, with renowned actors biting off big roles — or all of them at once, in the case of Andrew Scott — and invigorating the writer's legacy as a preeminent chronicler of the human condition. This month, Cate Blanchett concludes her West End run in a cheeky, modern spin on 'The Seagull,' while her 'Tár' co-star Nina Hoss leads the Brooklyn transfer of a British take on 'The Cherry Orchard' that's both intimate and bombastic. Now, the Northeast Corridor is telling a tale of two Vanyas, with Hugh Bonneville of 'Downton Abbey' headlining a broad and airy 'Uncle Vanya' at Shakespeare Theatre Company, while Scott shape-shifts in 'Vanya,' a London-born solo version shot through with melancholy now running in New York's West Village. Both are fresh, plain-spoken adaptations but could be two entirely different plays if they didn't share the same source material — the genius of which partly lies in its malleability. There are infinite ways to live a life — or to endure, as Chekhov's characters often feel they must — but only a handful of guiding forces when you really boil it down: Desire, purpose, money, death. (Anything missing probably falls under the first.) You can laugh or cry about it, and Chekhov demonstrates the pleasures and necessities of doing both. Humor is played to the hilt in artistic director Simon Godwin's staging at STC, which swiftly assumes the rhythms of a drawing room comedy. There is a haut bohemian vibe to the country estate where Bonneville's Vanya and its other perennial residents are compelled to entertain a couple of intrusive city folk: his late sister's widower, the vain intellectual Alexandre (Tom Nelis), and his beguiling, much younger new wife, Yelena (Ito Aghayere). The doctor, Ástrov (John Benjamin Hickey, soulful as ever), is called to tend the former's gout, but lingers to admire the latter's beauty. It's obvious up front that Sonya (Melanie Field), Alexandre's daughter and Vanya's niece, is smitten and the doctor oblivious — she practically nips at his heels like a puppy. Vanya, here an especially slobby slave to impulse, openly confesses his love for Yelena, who shoos him like a slobbering dog. The stage is set for disappointment all around, though you wouldn't know it for much of the show. The prevailing mood of leisure betrays only brief hints that they're all quite miserable underneath. That's because in this telling most everyone says exactly what they mean, whether the streamlined dialogue of Connor McPherson's translation encourages them to not. Subtlety and subtext seem to be out for a leisurely hike. McPherson shifts the setting from Russia to the Ukrainian countryside, where there's a polyglot feel to the ensemble, from Bonneville's British tongue to the booming vowels of Craig Wallace, who lends the family's penniless dependent an unusual assurance. Vanya's mother (Sharon Lockwood), known here as 'Grandmaman,' even gets a French saveur. This collection of disparate cultures — in a story that's ultimately about home — gleans cohesion through design. Robert Brill's romantically distressed set (peeling ivory paint, plush upholstery, faded wood), and the elegantly layered costumes by Susan Hilferty and Heather C. Freedman, add appealing depth and texture where the performance style favors a flat directness. Bonneville's Vanya is an amusing cad, disarming his resentful gripes with humor that's more charming than it is rightfully pissed off. His performance is an absolute pleasure. But it means that Vanya's pivot to indignation — when Alexandre proposes selling the estate — is too abrupt to buy. He does not ultimately seem like a man who'd try to take anyone's life into his hands. Joyful though it is, the production's levity costs it believable gravitas as fates descend into resigned ambivalence. Misery in Chekhov so often arises from secret or frustrated longings, which simmer just below the surface, and then boil people from the inside or erupt with scalding intensity. Here, the players are either too easy to read (poor Sonya) or a bit too good at keeping that turmoil under wraps until the moment it bursts into view. There are benefits to this approach: The co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where Godwin's staging premiered in February, is delightfully buoyant and easy to follow. Little guesswork is required to intuit how anyone really feels. But a thread goes missing when we don't feel like confidants to Chekhov's characters, privy to the inner conflicts they otherwise keep hidden. Scott has the benefit, in this regard, of being the only one onstage in 'Vanya,' adapted with fleet economy by Simon Stephens and directed with ease and ingenuity by Sam Yates. Every exchange feels like a secret confession. Every character trembles with something they dare not say out loud. There's coyness, intrigue and even palpable eroticism between thwarted lovers who never appear side by side. Somehow, it's also funny as hell. Scott's embodiment of each character is so vivid and distinct that you can imagine the whole array of them present at once — and how they would respond in a scene, even in their phantom absence. One of the intoxicating effects of his performance is that it allows you to observe a whole constellation of desires, worries and regrets mapped out by a single body. It's a testament to the actor's protean emotional range and readiness that he's able to illuminate so many shades of life. It's also thrilling proof that Chekhov captured the very essence of what it means to be human. Uncle Vanya, through April 20 at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harmon Hall in Washington. About 2 hours and 35 minutes with an intermission. Vanya, through May 11 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York. About 1 hour and 50 minutes without an intermission.
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Revivals Of Classic Weill, Chekhov Plays Offered Now In Brooklyn
Top revivals of two classics—Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard—are being performed in Brooklyn this month. The Threepenny Opera is being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music by BAM and St. Ann's Warehouse through April 6, while The Cherry Orchard, a new version of the play by Benedict Andrews that originally ran at the Donmar Warehouse in London, will be offered at St. Ann's Warehouse through April 27. 16 December 2019, Berlin: Oliver Reese (l-r), artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, conductor Adam Benzwi and Barrie Kosky, director and artistic director of the Komische Oper Berlin, will be at a press conference at the Berliner Ensemble. Kosky stages a new production of the Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill at the Berliner Ensemble. The premiere will be celebrated in early 2021. Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa (Photo by Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images) dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images The production of Bertolt Brecht's and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera was created by director Barrie Kosky; it is performed by the Berliner Ensemble, which was founded by Brecht and whose home remains the theater where the opera premiered in 1928. As BAM explains, 'Murderous antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) slashes through Victorian London in The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht's scandalous satire that electrified Weimar-era German audiences 400 times in just two years after its 1928 debut. 'A century later, Brecht's razor-sharp critique of unbridled capitalism still cuts deep—an eerily prophetic vision of a well-fed society teetering on the brink, propelled by Kurt Weill's infectious, jazz-infused score. 'Barrie Kosky's Berliner Ensemble production is sly and perversely sexy, embracing seediness and cynicism with glitzy disillusion and more than a hint of danger. A master showman, Kosky manages to beguile us through the familiar rise and fall of Brecht's sociopathic leading man, adding a knowing creepiness to his unrepentant antics. 'As Mack the Knife's indelible melody lingers, this sleek, elemental staging amplifies the play's knife-edge allure, proving its savage indictment of greed remains as urgent and seductive as ever,' BAM concluded. LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 02: Benedict Andrews attends the press night after party for "The Cherry Orchard" at The Donmar Warehouse on May 02, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by)Discussing its Chekov production, St. Ann's Warehouse said, 'In this in-the-round staging, the international cast arrive all at once and remain visible throughout the show, free to improvise and inhabit the characters' sacred home that will soon be gone. In the The Cherry Orchard Ranevskaya and her aristocratic household are confronted by the demands of a changing world. The tensions between the past and future, the personal and the political, are explored with urgency and passion while the family grapples with the inevitable loss.' Andrews, the theater continued, 'has developed a reputation as one of the world's leading interpreters of Chekhov. With the critically acclaimed The Cherry Orchard, he takes on the writer's masterpiece, contemporizing elements of the text in an unbridled, playful, and devastating vision that feels, (The Evening Standard said), 'entirely true to the spirit of the original.'' According to St. Ann's, Andrews said, 'I just love being in the rehearsal room with actors and Chekhov, it is the greatest gift. It invites enormous play, enormous exploration. It's a very democratic, collective, exploratory process where there's room for people to make offers and search for the life of the play together. By us putting the audience all the way around, there's an openness to it, it's only, only about the actors, their contact, and how they play with each other, and how that resonates with an audience. That collective experience is all I'm interested in.' St. Ann's previously offered Andrews' production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Kirby and Ben Foster. In an interview this week with Andrews said the text he created for his Chekhov production is 'direct and contemporary,' though he did retain Russian references. He also praised the intimacy of St. Ann's theater. Chekhov's characters, he added, live in a society 'that's on the brink of change and uncertainty, there's a storm on the horizon.' In today's 'time of division, (for the audience) to watch an ensemble play like this together I find really moving,' he concluded.
