THE WASTE LAND Ends Run at Wilton Music Hall

As part of the Wilton Music Hall's 150 Anniversary celebration, internationally celebrated actress Fiona Shaw will reprise her acclaimed performance in TS Eliot's The Waste Land in a limited engagement performance at the venue from December 30, 2009 to January 10, 2010 at the venue.

The production of the epic poem will be directed by Deborah Warner.  The Waste Land was first presented at Wilton's Music Hall for a sold out run in 1997, transferring hereafter to the Liverty Theatre in New York City in 1996. 

The Waste Land, published in 1922, is a 434 line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot.  Generally regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, despite the alleged obscurity of the poem, its shifts between satire and prophecy. Its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures has solidified its place as a touchstone of modern literature.

Shaw is currently starring in the National Theatre's production of Mother Courage and Her Children in the West End, also directed by Wagner, which runs through December 8.  The pair's previous collaborations include the National Theatre's Happy Days by Beckett (which toured to Paris, Madrid and Epidaurus, followed by Washington, New York, Amsterdam, Epidaurus again and Dublin); Richard II; The Good Person of Sichuan (for which Shaw won the Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress) and and The Powerbook.  Outside of the National they have teamed up on Medea (West End and Broadway); Electra (RSC); and Hedda Gabler (Abbey Theatre, Dublin and West End).

Reports have circulated that Shaw will return to the National in March 2010 to star as Lady Gay Spanker in Dion Boucicault's London Assurance.  The production is to be directed by Nicholas Hytner and will co-star Simon Russell Beale as Sir Harcourt Courtly.

Warner is currently working on Handel's The Messiah for the ENO at the Coliseum, which opens on November 27.

With a running time of 40 minutes The Waste Land will plays two performances per evening at 7:30 PM and 9 PM.  Performances on Sunday are at 6 PM.  

To book tickets, contact the box office by calling 020 7702 2789, or visit www.wiltons.org.uk

Built in 1858, Wilton's is the world's oldest operating music hall, built on the back of a pub. After being converted into a church and then a rag factory in the 19th century, it was revitalized as a performance space by Sir Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers and Sir John Betjeman.

 

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