Tilda Swinton’s performance marks 30 years since audiences last saw her tread the boards, meanwhile Gary Oldman will be in Krapp’s Last Tape
Tilda Swinton will return to the stage for the first time in more than 30 years as part of the Royal Court’s 70th anniversary programme in a reprisal of her 1988 one-woman performance in Manfred Karge’s Man to Man.
Swinton’s return to the role, in which she plays a widow who takes on the identity of her deceased husband, is one of two star turns in David Byrne’s third season as artistic director, which will also feature Gary Oldman in another revival: Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape that was first performed in 1958.
Byrne said the programme was inspired by going back to look at the theatre’s debut season and is “a year-long party” featuring “complete treats, which speak to where we are now and where we might be going next”.
When asked about the concerns over “star casting” in the West End and whether Swinton and Oldman fit into that trend, Byrne said: “In [the Royal Court’s] very first season George Devine talked Peggy Ashcroft into doing a Brecht which was a huge departure; we’ve had Olivier in the Entertainer; when Max Wall came and did Ubu here he was the biggest musical hall star in the world and the set was designed by David Hockney.
