Shadowlands (play)

Last updated

Shadowlands
Written by William Nicholson
Characters
Date premiered1989
Place premieredTheatre Royal, Plymouth
Original languageEnglish
SubjectBiographical
GenreDrama
SettingOxford, 1950s

Shadowlands is a play by William Nicholson adapted from his 1985 television film of the same name, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. It debuted at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth on 5 October 1989 before premiering at the Queen's Theatre in London on 23 October 1989. The play is about the relationship between Oxford don and author C. S. Lewis and the American writer Joy Gresham.

Contents

Synopsis

The story follows Lewis as he meets an American fan, Joy Gresham, whom he befriends and eventually marries. The story also focuses on his relationship with his brother, Warren Lewis and deals with his personal struggle: Lewis preaches that one should endure suffering with patience, but finds that the simple answers he had preached no longer apply when Joy becomes afflicted with cancer and eventually dies.

Historical casting

Character1989 Plymouth cast1989 West End cast1990 Broadway cast2007 West End revival cast2019 Chichester cast
Joy Davidman Jane Lapotaire Jane Alexander Janie Dee Liz White
C.S. Lewis Nigel Hawthorne Charles Dance Hugh Bonneville
Warren Lewis Geoffrey Toone Michael Allinson Richard Durden Andrew Havill

Production history

The play opened at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth on 5 October 1989 before transferring to the Queen's Theatre in London on 23 October 1989, running until 8 September 1990. The stage version gave Joy Davidman only one son instead of two. The production was directed by Elijah Moshinsky and starred Nigel Hawthorne as Lewis with Jane Lapotaire as Joy. It won Best Play in the Evening Standard Awards for 1990. Lapotaire was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her stage performance.

Hawthorne successfully took the role of Lewis to Broadway, playing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre from November 1990 to April 1991 and again directed by Moshinsky. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. [1] Hawthorne co-starred in New York, with Michael Allinson as Warren Lewis and Jane Alexander as Joy, who was now given her maiden name of Joy Davidman. Hawthorne won a 1991 Tony award for Best Actor, while Nicholson picked up a nomination for Best Play.

The first major revival of the play, starring Charles Dance as Lewis and Janie Dee as Joy, premiered at Cambridge Arts Theatre on 5 September 2007 before touring the UK. The production, directed by Michael Barker-Carven, transferred to the Wyndham's Theatre on 3 October 2007 for an eleven-week season before transferring to the Novello Theatre where it ran from 21 December 2007 to 23 February 2008.

A new production of Shadowlands at Chichester Festival Theatre opened on 26 April 2019. The production, which was directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, starred Hugh Bonneville as Lewis, Liz White as Joy Gresham and Andrew Havill as Warren Lewis.

Quotes

Joy in the stage version:

"See yourself in the mirror, you're separate from yourself. See the world in the mirror, you're separate from the world. I don't want that separation anymore."

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. S. Lewis</span> British writer, lay theologian, and scholar (1898–1963)

Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1954–1963). He is best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but he is also noted for his other works of fiction, such as The Screwtape Letters and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, including Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Sibley</span> English writer

Brian David Sibley is an English writer. He is author of over 100 hours of radio drama and has written and presented hundreds of radio documentaries, features and weekly programmes. He is widely known as the author of many film "making of" books, including those for the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joy Davidman</span> American poet (1915–1960)

Helen Joy Davidman was an American poet and writer. Often referred to as a child prodigy, she earned a master's degree from Columbia University in English literature at age twenty in 1935. For her book of poems, Letter to a Comrade, she won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 1938 and the Russell Loines Award for Poetry in 1939. She was the author of several books, including two novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Gresham</span> American-British actor, biographer and film producer

Douglas Howard Gresham is an American British stage and voice-over actor, biographer, film producer, and executive record producer. He is one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.

<i>A Grief Observed</i> 1961 memoir by C.S. Lewis

A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis's reflections on his experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, in 1960. The book was published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk because Lewis wished to avoid the connection. Though republished in 1963 under his own name after his death, the text still refers to his wife as “H”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wood (English actor)</span> English actor (1930–2011)

John Wood was an English actor, known for his performances in Shakespeare and his lasting association with Tom Stoppard. In 1976, he received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Stoppard's Travesties. He was nominated for two other Tony Awards for his roles in Sherlock Holmes (1975) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1968). In 2007, Wood was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year Honours List. Wood also appeared in WarGames, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Orlando, Shadowlands, The Madness of King George, Richard III, Sabrina, and Chocolat.

<i>Shadowlands</i> (1993 film) 1993 British film

Shadowlands is a 1993 British biographical drama film about the relationship between academic C. S. Lewis and Jewish American poet Joy Davidman, her death from cancer, and how this challenged his Christianity. It was directed by Richard Attenborough with a screenplay by William Nicholson based on his 1985 television film and 1989 stage play of the same name. The 1985 script began life as I Call It Joy written for Thames Television by Brian Sibley and Norman Stone. Sibley later wrote the book, Shadowlands: The True Story of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman. The film won the 1993 BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film. The film marked the last film appearance of English actor Michael Denison.

William Benedict Nicholson, OBE, FRSL is a British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist who has been nominated twice for an Oscar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Lindsay Gresham</span> American writer

William Lindsay Gresham was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly well-regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is Nightmare Alley (1946), which was adapted to film in 1947 and 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Dance</span> English actor

Walter Charles Dance is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. Dance started his career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) before appearing in film and television. For his services to drama he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.

Elizabeth White is an English actress. She grew up in Plymouth and attended Plymstock School from 1989 until 1994. She is known for portraying roles of Annie Cartwright in the BBC One drama series Life on Mars (2006–2007), and Emma Keane in the Channel 4 school-based drama series Ackley Bridge (2017–2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Eichhorn</span> American actress, writer, producer (b. 1952)

Lisa Eichhorn is an American actress, writer and producer. She made her film debut in 1979 in the John Schlesinger film Yanks, for which she received two Golden Globe nominations. Her international career has included film, theatre and television.

<i>The Madness of George III</i> 1991 play by Alan Bennett

The Madness of George III is a 1991 play by Alan Bennett. It is a fictionalised biographical study of the latter half of the reign of George III of the United Kingdom, his battle with mental illness, and the inability of his court to handle his condition. It was adapted for film in 1994 as The Madness of King George.

Piaf is a play by Pam Gems that focuses on the life and career of French chanteuse Edith Piaf. The biographical drama with music portrays the singer as a self-destructive, promiscuous alcoholic and junkie who, in one controversial scene, urinates in public.

Janie Dee is a British actress. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.

Thelma Holt is a British theatre producer and former actress.

Brian Eastman is a producer of feature films, television drama, and stage productions. He has received two BAFTA awards and two international Emmy awards and his productions have received many other awards and nominations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society. He divides his time between the UK and US.

Elijah Moshinsky was an Australian opera director, theatre director and television director who worked for the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal National Theatre, and BBC Television, among other organisations.

Shadowlands may refer to:

Shadowlands, also known as C.S. Lewis: Shadowlands and C.S. Lewis Through the Shadowlands, is a 1985 television film written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. The film is about the relationship between Oxford don and author C. S. Lewis and the American writer Joy Davidman. It stars Joss Ackland as Lewis, with Claire Bloom as his wife Joy Davidman.

References