Productions
The original London cast included Roger Rees as Nicholas, David Threlfall as Smike, Ben Kingsley as Squeers, Bob Peck as John Browdie and Sir Mulberry Hawk, John Woodvine as Ralph Nickleby, Susan Littler as Kate, Edward Petherbridge as Newman Noggs, Timothy Spall as Young Wackford and Mr. Folair, John McEnery as Mr. Mantalini, William the Waiter and Mr. Snevellicci, Graham Crowden as Mr. Vincent Crummles, and Suzanne Bertish as Fanny Squeers, Peg Sliderskew and Miss Snevellicci, among many others. All actors apart from Rees played multiple roles. Some parts were recast in November 1980, with Fulton Mackay playing Squeers, Emily Richard taking the role of Kate Nickleby and Christopher Benjamin as Crummles. Fulton Mackay and Timothy Spall had left the company by the time the production moved to Broadway and were replaced by Alun Armstrong and Ian McNeice respectively. When the Aldwych production closed in the summer of 1981 the set was moved to the Old Vic Theatre and the work performed for a four-part mini-series by Channel 4 and Mobil Showcase Theatre., which was telecast in the U.S. in January 1983.
The full length version of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby was produced by two American companies subsequent to the RSC. The Great Lakes Theatre Festival, formerly Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in 1982 with a revival in 1983, directed by Edward Stern and Robert Lanchester, and Kansas City Repertory Theater, formerly Missouri Repertory Theater, directed by James Assad and Leon Rubin in 1983.
The production was revived for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in January 1986. A second Broadway production ran from 24 August 1986 to 12 October 1986 at the Broadhurst Theatre and was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Revival.
Despite the play's success, its length and the size of the cast required means that it is seldom revived, although in 2006 Edgar prepared a shorter version for a production at the Chichester Festival, which transferred in December 2007 and January 2008 to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. This version has been produced in the US by the California Shakespeare Festival, Playmakers Repertory Theater and a production was performed at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston in October - December 2010.
Read more about this topic: The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby (play)
Famous quotes containing the word productions:
“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Most new things are not good, and die an early death; but those which push themselves forward and by slow degrees force themselves on the attention of mankind are the unconscious productions of human wisdom, and must have honest consideration, and must not be made the subject of unreasoning prejudice.”
—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902)
“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)