13 December 2017
Newsdesk
Opening Jermyn Street Theatre’s Spring SCANDAL Season, and following a highly acclaimed New York revival in 2011, Lanie Robertson’s Woman Before a Glass brings Peggy Guggenheim's remarkable story to life, revealing how her passionate loyalties changed the face of 20th Century art.
This UK premiere, directed by Pulitzer Prize winning director Austin Pendleton, will star off Broadway veteran Judy Rosenblatt (The Cobbler; The Sopranos; The Biscuit Club, The Cell Theatre).
After moving to Venice in the late 1940s, Peggy Guggenheim quickly became one of its most glamorous and scandalous residents. Guggenheim collected both art and artists; she was married to pioneering Dadaist Max Ernst, the lover of Samuel Beckett, and champion of Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso.
This energetic one woman show captures Peggy Guggenheim’s punky spirit and examines her choice to live life on her own terms. She dedicated her life to introducing like-minded artists, saving priceless masterpieces, and assembling the world's finest collection of 20th Century art in her Venetian Palazzo, but at what personal cost?
Set in Venice, the audience will see Guggenheim at four different moments in time: 1963, 1965, 1967 and 1968. Each year offers a snapshot into her vibrant life as she experiences a political situation, an exhibition opening, a loss and a touching moment of reflection.
Director, Austin Pendleton, comments, Woman Before a Glass is a one-woman play, but it has the richness of a play with many people in it. It's about Peggy Guggenheim, and the moments in her life that it selects to tell us about encapsulate the whole emotional, intellectual, artistic, sexual, and parental richness in that woman's life, the tragedy of it, and the sometimes howling comedy. To work with an actress of the range, craft, and dazzling electric vulnerability of Judy Rosenblatt only magnifies for me the excitement of working on such a play.
Lanie Robertson, says, I am particularly thrilled that Jermyn Street Theatre is bringing Peggy Guggenheim home to London. In several ways, Guggenheim is more British than American, more Londoner than New Yorker. It was in London in 1938 that she opened her very first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune at 30 Cork Street, approximately four blocks from this theatre. There she introduced many Londoners to the work of Kandinsky, Tanguy, and other moderns largely unknown in Britain at that time. In many important ways, Guggenheim’s love affair with modern and abstract art was consummated here.
Judy Rosenblatt has the most important quality for the solo role: attitude [...] Guggenheim, who died in 1979, ran away to Europe, shopped enthusiastically, slept with whomever attracted her and said whatever she felt like, and it’s entertaining to observe that kind of freedom. (The New York Times)
Judy Rosenblatt ably portrays Guggenheim, capturing her twisted charm and pathos […] We get an intriguing glimpse of a driven woman whose appetites are insatiable. (Huffington Post)
Performance Dates Wednesday 17th January – Saturday 3rd February
Mon – Sat 7.30pm, Sat 3.30pm
Running time 90 minutes
Age Guidance 12+
Twitter @JSTheatre, #WomanBeforeAGlass
Facebook www.facebook.com/Jermynstreettheatre
Director Austin Pendleton
Recreated by Tom McClane-Williamson
Original design Giovanni Villari
Recreated by Erika Rodriguez
Original lighting Stephen Petrilli
Recreated by Ali Hunter
Costume design Catherine Siracusa
Sound Giovanni Villari
Peggy Guggenheim Judy Rosenblatt
Location Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6ST
How to get there Jermyn Street Theatre is located at the Lower Regent Street end of Jermyn Street, next to Getti (Italian) Restaurant. The nearest underground station is Piccadilly Circus (on Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines). The nearest rail station is Charing Cross.
Box Office Tickets are available priced £30 | £20 concessions
Preview tickets are £15
Scandal Season Ticket priced £100 (Includes one ticket and a complimentary drink at all four shows of the season).
A limited number of tickets at £10 for under 30s are available, bookable online and by telephone.
Available from Jermyn Street Box Office and www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk, 020 7287 2875.
Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2015 for his productions of Between Riverside and Crazy both at the Atlantic Theatre Company and at Second Stages. He performed in Straight White Men (Public Theatre, Festival d’Automne a Paris), and directed Tribes and The Birthday Party at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, where he has acted and directed for many years. He has also written three plays, Orson’s Shadow, Uncle Bob and Booth, all produced internationally and in New York.
Lanie Robertson
Lanie Robertson is known for his highly successful play Lady Day at the Emerson Bar & Grill alongside A Penny for the Guy, Alfred Stieglitz loves O’keeffe, and Back County Crimes. His works have been produced internationally and he has been the recipient of an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Kliban Award and a Berrilla Kerr Award. Robertson is also a member of The Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America, East.
Judy Rosenblatt
Judy Rosenblatt trained at Cornell University and The Central School of Speech & Dramatic Art in London. She has appeared in films such as The Cobbler, TV including The Sopranos and many stage productions off Broadway including The Biscuit Club (The Cell Theatre), Moses, the Author (Fringe NYC Encore Series) and The Pinter Connection (HB Playwrights Theatre). Judy is also a proud member of The Players Club and The League of Professional Theatre Women.
Jermyn Street Theatre
Jermyn Street Theatre is an arthouse theatre in the heart of the West End. A 70-seat studio, it opened in 1994, and has since won numerous awards and transferred many productions to the West End and Broadway. This summer Tom Littler became Artistic Director. Littler relaunched the venue as a producing house with The ESCAPE Season. The ESCAPE season opened with the world premiere of Howard Brenton's The Blinding Light, directed by Tom Littler, which was nominated for four OffWestEnd Awards. This was followed by the world premiere of Judith Burnley's Anything That Flies directed by Alice Hamilton. This was followed by the world premiere of Judith Burnley's Anything That Flies directed by Alice Hamilton, and Howard Brenton's new version of Miss Julie, in a production by Tom Littler co-produced with Theatre by the Lake, which was also nominated for four OffWestEnd Awards. The Hound of the Baskervilles, directed by Lotte Wakeham and co-produced with English Theatre Frankfurt, opens this December.
