Castro's Beard

Last updated

Castro's Beard is a play by British playwright Brian Stewart. The play centers on the true plots by the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro in the 1960s.

Contents

Initial productions

The play Castro's Beard was first produced by the Deptford Players, Off-Broadway in 2001. The New York Times described it as a "mordant, irreverent comedy that was timely and thought-provoking." [1] It was subsequently produced by the Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts in 2002 and then at the Stages Repertory Theatre, Houston in 2004. [2]

Following a rehearsed reading at the Arts centre in London in 2005 - with a cast that included David Soul and Timothy West - the play was produced by the Theatre Royal Haymarket, in association with Richard Jordan Productions and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and embarked on a number one tour[ citation needed ] of the UK in 2006 when the name was changed to Killing Castro. The cast included: Edward Hardwicke (Torphy), Clive Mantle (Brawner), Michael Praed (Madison) and Martin Shaw's son, Joe Shaw, as Drake.

Reception

The work received mixed reviews in the UK. It was described by the Birmingham Mail as an "acclaimed comedy" which "chronicles the more bizarre of America's attempts to kill the Cuban leader Fidel Castro - including filling his shoes with poison and inventing an exploding cigar". [3] The Daily Telegraph said, "The British dramatist Brian Stewart appears to have got lucky with this intermittently entertaining but rather trite little play about the CIA's plots to bump off Fidel Castro". [4] Although, Michael Billington of The Guardian was much more complimentary: "Stewart's weapon is comedy. But his argument, that America will stop at nothing in its defiance of international law, is no different from that of" Harold Pinter's Nobel speech. [5]

Later productions

The play was published by Josef Weinberger in 2009. [6] In 2013, the play was translated into Polish by Karolina Mackiewicz and performed in repertory by the Teatr Polski Szczecin as Operacja Castro; the director was Bartłomiej Wysozomirski. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felicity Kendal</span> English actress

Felicity Ann Kendal is an English actress, working principally in television and theatre. She has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles over a more than 70-year career, but the role that brought attention to her career was that of Barbara Good in the 1975 television series The Good Life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Shakespeare Company</span> British theatre company

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally.

<i>Gas Light</i> 1938 British thriller play by Patrick Hamilton

Gas Light is a 1938 thriller play, set in 1880s London, written by the British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton. Hamilton's play is a dark tale of a marriage based on deceit and trickery, and a husband committed to driving his wife insane in order to steal from her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alec McCowen</span> English actor

Alexander Duncan McCowen, was an English actor. He was known for his work in numerous film and stage productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Rep</span>

The Old Rep is the United Kingdom's first ever purpose-built repertory theatre, constructed in 1913, located on Station Street in Birmingham, England. The theatre was a permanent home for Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Company, formed in 1911 from his amateur theatre group, The Pilgrim Players, founded in 1907. Jackson funded the construction of the theatre and established his professional company there.

Playboy of the West Indies (1984) is a play by Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura, a Caribbean version of John Millington Synge's 1907 The Playboy of the Western World.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Jackson (director)</span> English theatre director (1879–1961)

Sir Barry Vincent Jackson was an English theatre director, entrepreneur and the founder of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and, alongside George Bernard Shaw, the Malvern Festival.

Miles Tredinnick, also known as Riff Regan, is a rock musician, songwriter and a stage and screenwriter. In the 1970s, he was the lead singer with the British rock band London. Afterwards he went on to write comedy plays for the stage. He has also written scripts for Frankie Howerd, including the television special Superfrank! and the stage comedy Up Pompeii!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torben Betts</span> English playwright, screenwriter and actor

Torben Betts is an English playwright, screenwriter and actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Mathias</span> British actor

Sean Gerard Mathias is a Welsh actor, director, and writer. He is known for directing the film Bent and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York City, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Sean Foley is a British director, writer, comedian and actor. Following early success as part of the comedy double act The Right Size and their long-running stage show The Play What I Wrote, Foley has more recently become a director, including of several West End comedy productions. In 2019, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Lucy Caldwell is a Northern Irish playwright and novelist. She was the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award and of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize.

Robin French is an English playwright, film and television writer and songwriter.

<i>The Old Masters</i> (play)

The Old Masters is a play by Simon Gray about the art critic Bernard Berenson and the art dealer Joseph Duveen. It is set over one evening in Berenson's Italian home, Villa I Tatti, near Florence, in 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Lyel</span> English actress

Viola Lyel was an English actress. In a long stage career she appeared in the West End and on Broadway, for leading directors of the day, including Sir Barry Jackson, and Nigel Playfair. Her roles ranged from Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to melodrama and drawing room comedies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Repertory Theatre</span> Theatre in Birmingham, England

Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Billie Lester, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre companies and one of its most consistently innovative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Pinter Theatre</span> West End theatre in London, England

The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011, is a West End theatre, and opened on Panton Street in the City of Westminster, on 15 October 1881, as the Royal Comedy Theatre. It was designed by Thomas Verity and built in just six months in painted (stucco) stone and brick. By 1884 it was known as simply the Comedy Theatre. In the mid-1950s the theatre underwent major reconstruction and re-opened in December 1955; the auditorium remains essentially that of 1881, with three tiers of horseshoe-shaped balconies.

Henryk Baranowski was a Polish theatre, opera and film director, actor, stage designer, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. He is best known for his starring role in the film Dekalog: One directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, and also appeared as Rosa's brother Josef in Rosa Luxemburg directed by Margarethe von Trotta and as Napoleon in Pan Tadeusz directed by Andrzej Wajda. He directed over 60 theater and opera productions in Europe, Russia and the US and was the Artistic Director of the Teatr Śląski in Katowice in the mid 2000s. He also directed four "television theatre" productions: ...yes I will Yes, For Phaedra (1998), Saint Witch (2003), and Night is the Mother of Day (2004).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Festival Theatre, Malvern</span> Theatre complex in Malvern, England

The Festival Theatre, now known as Malvern Theatres, is a theatre complex on Grange Road in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. Malvern Theatres, housed in the Winter Gardens complex in the town centre of Great Malvern, has been a provincial centre for the arts since 1885. The theatre became known for its George Bernard Shaw productions in the 1930s and from 1977 onwards, along with the works of Edward Elgar. Up until 1965, 19 different plays of Shaw were produced at the Malvern Festival Theatre, and six premiered here, including The Apple Cart at the opening Malvern Festival in 1929, Geneva, a Fancied Page of History in Three Acts in August 1938 and In Good King Charles's Golden Days in August 1939.

Robin Hawdon is an English playwright and novelist, with previous additional careers as actor and theatre director. He is best known for his stage comedies and novels.

References

  1. ↑ Van Gelder, Laurence (October 2, 2001). "How to Kill Castro? 60's Fantasies Resonate Today". New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  2. ↑ Evans, Everett (October 11, 2004). "CIA in a lather in 'Castro's Beard'". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  3. ↑ "Worcestershire News: Play insight on Castro; MALVERN". Birmingham Mail. 25 May 2006. Archived from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  4. ↑ Theatre Record. I. Herbert. 2006. p. 690. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  5. ↑ Billington, Michael (May 30, 2006). "Killing Castro". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  6. ↑ Stewart, Brian (2009). Castro's Beard. UK: Josef Weinberger. ISBN   978 0 85676 326 7.
  7. ↑ "Operacja Castro". Teatr Polski Szczecin. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.