Based on Katherine Boo's uncompromising and Pulitzer Prize-winning book and directed by Rufus Norris, David Hare has fashioned a tumultuous play on an epic scale.
India is surging with global ambition, but beyond the luxury hotels surrounding Mumbai airport lies a makeshift slum, full of people with plans of their own. Zehrunisa (Meera Syal) and her son Abdul aim to recycle enough rubbish to fund a proper house. Sunil, 12 and stunted, wants to eat until he's as tall as Kalu the thief. Asha seeks to steal government anti-poverty funds to turn herself into a 'first-class person', while her daughter Manju intends to become the slum's first female graduate. But their schemes are fragile: global recession threatens the garbage trade and another slum dweller is about to make an accusation that will destroy Zehrunisa herself, and shatter the neighbourhood.
Meera Syal is known to a huge television and film audience for work including Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Absolutely Anything, Scoop and Anita and Me (from her own book). Her theatre work includes Rafta, Rafta for the National Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), The Killing of Sister George (West End) and Shirley Valentine (Menier Chocolate Factory).
David Hare has written 15 original plays for the National Theatre, including: The Power of Yes, Gethsemane, Stuff Happens, The Permanent Way, Amy's View, Skylight (screened recently at Cinema Nouveau), The Secret Rapture, The Absence of War, Murmuring Judges, Racing Demon, Pravda (written with Howard Brenton) and Plenty. His many screenplays include: Turks and Caicos, Salting the Battlefield, Page Eight, The Hours, and The Reader.
Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. Her first book: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, also won the 2013 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award and was a 2013 Pulitzer Finalist.
In April 2015, Rufus Norris will become Director of the National Theatre, where he has directed Table, The Amen Corner, London Road, Death and the King's Horseman and Market Boy. Screen work includes Broken, which won the British Independent Film Award for Best Film, and the film of London Road which will be released in June.
The full cast of Behind the Beautiful Forevers is: Hiran Abeysekera, Esh Alladi, Nathalie Armin, Pal Aron, Tia-Lana Chinapyel, Vincent Ebrahim, Sartaj Garewal, Mariam Haque, Thusitha Jayasundera, Muzz Khan, Ranjit Krishnamma, Manjeet Mann, Nikita Mehta, Anjli Mohindra, Tia Palamathanan, Bharti Patel, Ronak Patani, Chook Sibtain, Anneika Rose, Gavi Singh Chera, Stephanie Street, Meera Syal, Anjana Vasan, Assad Zaman, and Shane Zaza.
The production is designed by Katrina Lindsay, with lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Paul Arditti, fight direction by Kate Waters and video design by Jack Henry James.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers releases on South African screens from Saturday, 4 April, for four screenings only. The running time of this production is 2 hours 50 minutes, including a 20-minute interval.
National Theatre Live enables audiences to experience the best of British theatre throughout the year, as the NT brings cameras into the auditorium to record and broadcast performances from stage to screen. Over three-and-a-half-million people have experienced a National Theatre Live broadcast via satellite, both live and time-delayed, in more than 2000 venues in over 40 different countries around the world, including South Africa. National Theatre Live events are distributed outside the UK through New York-based BY Experience, the pioneer of global live 'alternative content' digital cinema events.
Next up in the NT Live Season on the big screen is Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge (releases on 25 April). Miller confronts the American dream in this dark and passionate tale. In Brooklyn, longshoreman Eddie Carbone welcomes his Sicilian cousins to the land of freedom. But when one of them falls for his beautiful niece, they discover that freedom comes at a price. Eddie's jealous mistrust exposes a deep, unspeakable secret - one that drives him to commit the ultimate betrayal. The visionary Ivo van Hove directs this stunning production of Miller's tragic masterpiece with a stellar cast led by Mark Strong (The Imitation Game; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) in the Young Vic's 'magnetic, electrifying, astonishingly bold' production.
In Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem (releases on 16 May), Hilary, a young psychology researcher at a brain-science institute, is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question at work, where psychology and biology meet. If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? This is 'the hard problem' which puts Hilary at odds with her colleagues who include her first mentor Spike, her boss Leo and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Is the day coming when the computer and the MRI scanner will answer all the questions psychology can ask? Meanwhile Hilary needs a miracle, and she is prepared to pray for one.
Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman (releases on 13 June) features Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler's List) as Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw's witty, provocative classic; a romantic comedy, an epic fairy tale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.
For booking information on Behind the Beautiful Forevers, download the Ster-Kinekor App on any Nokia, Samsung Android, iPhone or Blackberry smart phone for updates, news and to make a booking, go to www.cinemanouveau.co.za or sterkinekor.mob. Follow on Twitter @nouveaubuzz and on Facebook at Cinema Nouveau. For queries, contact Ticketline on 0861 Movies (668 437).
The discounts and benefits for cardholders of SK Club, Discovery Vitality and Edgars Club loyalty programmes do apply for all live theatre productions. Special prices for school and group bookings are also available on request.
Read more about live theatre, opera and ballet on the big screen at www.writingstudio.co.za
