National Theatre to Open Bartlett's EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON 8/4

London's National Theatre will open Mike Bartlett's play EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON on August 4, the Telegraph reports.  The show features a cast of seventeen playing over fifty roles and takes place from 1968 to 2525. 

Bartlett told the Telegraph, "I wanted it to feel like the best night out, that night where you have a philosophical conversation in the pub, then you go to a bar and fall in love, then go to a club where something disastrous happens, and you stay out all night. I wanted to see whether you could throw everything at it and still maintain a structure and coherence...I didn't want a play that says, 'This is a very important subject.' People don't want to be lectured. They're too clever and informed for that."  Bartlett's aim is to connect many topics in one evening on stage. 

The National Theatre's description of the play reads,"An all-pervasive fear of the future and a guilty pleasure in the excesses of the present drive Mike Bartlett's epic rollercoaster of a play from 1968 to 2525 and back again...

Burlesque strip shows, bad dreams, social breakdown, population explosion, worldwide paranoia. A fast and furious metropolitan crash of people, scenes and decades, as three sisters attempt to navigate their dislocated lives and loves, while their dysfunctional father, a brilliant scientist, predicts global catastrophe."

For more information about EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.

Bartlett's play LOVE, LOVE, LOVE will open at Plymouth's Drum Theatre on October 7.  It will run until October 23 and will then tour.  Bartlett says that the play will deal with "the idea of the baby-boomer generation versus our generation. I suppose you find a question in one play and try to answer it in another. It will make accusations against the older crowd but the baby-boomers will answer back because, you see, I think they've got a case to make against us."

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