The Finborough Theatre presents a new digital production of the classic Victorian theatrical comedy Masks and Faces, by Charles Reade and Tom Taylor. Available to watch on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel from Wednesday, 28 July at 6.00pm to Wednesday, 25 August 2021 at midnight as part of #FinboroughForFree, and showing concurrently with subtitles on Scenesaver.
Country gentleman Ernest Vane comes to London and is seduced into the celebrity lifestyle of a group of players - soon discarding his new wife for the more obvious charms of the great stage actress Peg Woffington.
In the tradition of The School for Scandal and The Rivals, Masks and Faces is both a 18th century period caper and a tribute to the backstage world of the theatre, complete with the hapless failed playwright, Triplet, and his hungry family, to real-life writer
Colley Cibber, and the ghastly critics Soaper and Snarl......
Set in the 18th century, written in the 19th century, filmed in the 20th century (with an all-star cast), and now presented for the first time online, Masks and Faces is a celebration of making theatre.
First performed in 1852, the history of Masks and Faces is rooted in Kensington and Chelsea and the local area around the Finborough Theatre. It provided
Ellen Terry - a former resident of Finborough Road, and a long term resident of Earl's Court - with one of her first and most acclaimed leading roles. The production is supported by the Friends of Brompton Cemetery, next to the Finborough Theatre, where the co-author
Tom Taylor, and actors
Ben Webster and Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft - all known for their roles in Masks and Faces - lie buried.
Presented as part of the Kensington + Chelsea Festival, which runs from 21 June-31 August 2021. The Kensington + Chelsea Festival will bring people together to inspire and be inspired, offering a season of arts experiences in venues and unusual spaces, putting culture at the heart of pandemic recovery. The multi-disciplinary will celebrate creativity and culture for everyone. The Festival mix spans visual art, public art, design, theatre, circus, opera, dance, music, outdoor arts, comedy, spoken word, young people's take-over stages, family shows, talks, micro-commissions, with creative experiments enabling audiences to see artists bringing new ideas to life.
Playwright
Charles Reade (1814-1884) was known as both playwright and novelist. His works include the novel The Cloister and the Hearth, and the play The Courier of Lyons. He wrote Masks and Faces in collaboration with
Tom Taylor (1817-1880) who remains best known for his plays The Ticket-of-Leave Man and Our American Cousin - the play that Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. Born in Sunderland, he became editor of Punch Magazine in 1874. Born in Sunderland and educated at Cambridge, Taylor was a respected classical scholar as well as house dramatist to the major theatres in London, the Olympic, the Haymarket and the Lyceum. He became editor of Punch Magazine in 1874, after thirty years as a regular columnist, specialising in humorous verse with a liberal attitude towards issues of the time.
Tom Taylor is buried in Brompton Cemetery, just five minutes from the Finborough Theatre.
Director Matthew Iliffe's productions at the Finborough Theatre include
Eleanor Burgess' The Niceties,
Lionel Bart and
Alun Owen's musical
Maggie May and Colleen Murphy's new play Geography of Fire/La Furie et sa Géographie as part of Vibrant 2019 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. He previously directed
Jake Brunger's Four Play (Above The Stag) and the European premiere of The Burnt Part Boys which was nominated for the OffWestEnd Award for Best Director and Best Musical Production (Park Theatre). Matthew graduated from the University of Bristol with a first-class honours degree in Theatre and Performance Studies, and trained on the StoneCrabs Young Directors Programme, in association with The Albany. He has served as an assistant director for National Youth Music Theatre, Insane Root Theatre Company and Changeling Theatre, and as associate director on Musik (Leicester Square Theatre).
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