Imagine the Unimaginable: A First Look at The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? *UPDATED*

“Four decades after ‘Virginia Woolf’ sent shock waves through the mainstream theater, Mr. Albee still asks questions that no other major American dramatist dares to ask.”

Ben Brantley, NY Times Critic, 2002

We are extremely thrilled Damian Lewis is making a wonderful comeback to stage in the West End revival of Edward Albee’s late masterpiece The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? Damian is headlining the play as Martin Gray along with Sophie Okonedo playing Martin’s wife Stevie, Archie Madekwe as his son Billy and Jason Hughes as his oldest friend Ross. Tom Kirdahy Productions is producing and Ian Rickson, who served as the artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre from 1998 to 2006, is directing the play. And as if we needed another reason to get excited about it, The Guardian critic Michael Billington cites The Goat in his Unmissable Theatre of 2017 list! Damian has also recently been on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC2 Radio to talk about his return to stage. You can hear the program here and Damian’s bit starts at around 1:40:00.

The Goat is arguably the most provocative and controversial play by Albee who unfortunately passed away last September at the age of 88. The play won all the major theater awards; namely Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle, for Best New Play of the Year when it was first staged on Broadway in 2002. As we hope it will repeat that with Damian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo at the helm, it’s time for a first look, without any major spoiler, at The Goat!

Well, it’s time to meet The Grays!

Continue reading “Imagine the Unimaginable: A First Look at The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? *UPDATED*”

Damian Lewis on Stage: Pillars of the Community

We now have two weeks to go until Damian Lewis makes his return to the West End stage in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? and we are continuing our countdown with Damian Lewis in Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community at the National Theatre. My story of finding out about this play is quite fun.

It all starts with a good colleague with whom I share love for theater asking me to name my favorite male and female stage performances in 2015. Easy. It’s Lesley Manville in Ibsen’s Ghosts and Damian Lewis in Mamet’s American Buffalo (with Mark Strong in Miller’s A View From the Bridge as a close second). And what is it about these performances that make me LOVE them?  Just one word: Precision.

topperfs

Then I think about the heart-breaking performance Lesley Manville gives in Ghosts which, in fact, has brought her an Olivier Award in 2014 (I saw the play much later when it visited Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2015). I know Manville mostly from her work on big screen such as Secrets and Lies (1996), Vera Drake (2004), Another Year (2010) and Mr Turner (2014) all of which were some of my favorites in the year they were released. But I really do not know about her stage work. So I google her. And this is one of the first images I hit!

source: telegraph.co.uk
source: telegraph.co.uk

Ha! Small world. Have you heard of the saying that Brits have 10 actors? I am about to believe that! 😀 And it’s time we dig into the play! Continue reading “Damian Lewis on Stage: Pillars of the Community”

Billions on Showtime 2.03: Optimal Play

Billions pulls a great trick from the big bag of tricks available to entertainment. It puts on an episode with a discrete arc — a beginning, middle, end… rising tension, climax, and denouement. And it does it in each episode while also exploring deeply profound themes fit for feature length film. This show is entertaining, no doubt. But there are ways in which it isn’t “just” entertainment. Allow me, please, to explore a few of the ways Billions pulled it out for S2Ep3 “Optimal Play”, would you?

Continue reading “Billions on Showtime 2.03: Optimal Play”

A Young Girl Reads The Forsyte Saga in Prague: Veronica’s Story

Hello, everyone! Welcome to a NEW Fan Stories Day!

One of the things that we love the most about our community is that Damian Lewis has fans from all over the world. That is why we have made an effort to have different nationalities represented in our fan stories series and it is our utmost pleasure today to have Veronica who is sharing her lovely fan story from Prague, Czech Republic! She is a young fan and it is beyond me that she discovered Damian when she was even younger. Hats off, Veronica 😀

source: Veronica with a South American Tapir!

Hello my name is Veronica and I would like to tell you how I became a fan of Damian Lewis. Continue reading “A Young Girl Reads The Forsyte Saga in Prague: Veronica’s Story”

Billions on Showtime, Season 2, Episode 3: Optimal Play

source: Showtime

I could not be happier that a game theory term makes it to the title of this week’s episode: Optimal Play. Optimal Play, also known as Best Response, is the strategy that produces the most favorable outcome for a player, taking the strategies of other players in the game as given.

Given that the entire hedge-fund industry is under siege and that he needs to adapt, Axe’s optimal play is to venture out of the city walls and straight into the NFL. We learn from his chat with NY Giants chairman Steve Tisch that Axe grew up with football on a “24-inch Trinitron knock-off” and his first ever football game in a stadium was in Tisch’s box. As Tisch shares with him that he needs to jump through quite a few hoops to impress the NFL, Axe is pretty confident about his bid and already trying to figure out where his seat will be at the stadium. Not here at MetLife Stadium, of course. NY Giants is not for sale 😀 Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 2, Episode 3: Optimal Play”