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LES BLANCS
Written BY LORRAINE HANSBERRY,
FINAL TEXT ADAPTED BY ROBERT NEMIROFF
Directed by Yaël Farber
An African country teeters on the edge of civil war. A society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Racial tensions boil over. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father’s funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm.
A family and a nation fall apart under the pressure to determine their own identity as this brave, illuminating and powerful play confronts the hope and tragedy of revolution.
Written eleven years after A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s final drama is an unknown masterpiece of the American stage and a highly theatrical search for the soul of post-colonial Africa.
Les Blancs marks the National Theatre debut of the multi-award-winning director Yaël Farber.
TRAILER
Watch the Trailer here
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
THE STAGE
THE GUARDIAN
TIME OUT
THE OBSERVER
EVENING STANDARD
WHAT'S ON STAGE
PRESS
‘An exquisite production’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH | Read more...
‘Epic. Near-perfect’
THE GUARDIAN | Read more...
‘the brilliant South African director Yaël Farber has unleashed its tragic power’
‘Angry but even-handed, the monumental simplicity of director Yael Farber’s staging creates a space for careful reflection of a delicate issue — and on the National Theater’s main stage, that feels momentous in its own right.’
VARIETY | Read more...
‘Powerful. Jaw-dropping’
TIME OUT| Read more…
‘Revolution so real you can smell it’
THE OBSERVER | Read More...
‘this most humane and disturbingly beautiful of productions demands that its audience continue to wrestle with the intractable issues that lie at its heart.’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH | Read more...
‘The first ten minutes of ‘Les Blancs’ are a jaw-dropping setting-out of Farber’s stall, a overwhelming surge of sights, sounds, smells – total theatre.’
TIME OUT | Read More...
PRODUCTION INFO / THE COMPANY
SHEILA ATIM as The Woman
GARY BEADLE as Abioseh Matoseh
SIDNEY COLE as Peter
ELLIOT COWAN as Charlie Morris
JAMES FLEET as Dr Willy Dekoven
CLIVE FRANCIS as Major George Rice
DANIEL FRANCIS-Swaby as Ensemble
TUNJI KASIM as Eric
MPAHLENI (MADOSINI) LATOZI AS MATRIARCH & SINGER
PAUL LAVERS as Understudy Willy Dekoven / Major Rice
KATIE LIGHTFOOT as Understudy Marta Gotterling
ANNA MADELEY as Dr Marta Gotterling
JOYCE MOHOLOAGAE as Matriarch & Singer / Music Director
NOFENISHALA MVOTYO as Matriarch & Singer
ANNA-MARIA NABIRYE as Ensemble
NOGCINILE YEKANI NOMAQOBISO as Matriarch & Singer
ROGER JEAN NSENGIYUMVA as Ngago
SIÂN PHILLIPS AS MADAME Neilsen
CAMERON ROBERTSON as Understudy Charlie Morris
DANNY SAPANI As Tshembe Matoseh
MARK THEODORE as Ensemble
TREVOR A TOUSSAINT as Understudy Peter
KARREN WINCHESTER as Understudy Madame Neilsen
Creative Team
YAËL FARBER – Director
SOUTRA GILMOUR - Designer
TIM LUTKIN – Lighting Designer
ADAM CORK - Music and Sound
IMOGEN KNIGHT – Movement
DREW LICHTENBERG - Dramaturg
KEV McCURDY – Fight Director
JEANNETTE NELSON – Company Voice Work
HAZEL HOLDER – Dialect Coach
MARK MAUGHAN– Staff Director