National Theatre Associate Alexander Zeldin writes and directs The Confessions, which will play in the Lyttelton theatre from October 2023 with music composed by founding member and lead vocalist of Foals, Yannis Philippakis.
Following hours of interviews with his mother in 2019, Alexander Zeldin brings a real life to stage, sweeping from Australia in 1943 to London in 2021 and chronicling a tale for self-realisation against the times. Playing out over the tumultuous decades of the second half of the 20th Century, we follow Alice’s complex relationships as they become a common thread in this intimate portrait of a life. This play marks Alexander Zeldin’s return to the National Theatre since his Inequalities plays Beyond Caring, LOVE and Faith, Hope and Charity.
Featuring a cast that includes Eryn Jean Norvill and Pamela Rabe as they make their UK stage debuts, the company is completed by Joe Bannister, Amelda Brown, Jerry Killick, Lilit Lesser, Brian Lipson, Gabrielle Scawthorn and Yasser Zadeh. With set and costume designer Marg Horwell, choreographer and movement director
Imogen Knight, lighting designer Paule Constable, composer Yannis Philippakis, sound designer Josh Anio Grigg, casting by Jacob Sparrow, Australian casting by Serena Hill, associate director Joanna Pidcock, dramaturgs Faye Merralls and Sasha Milavic Davies, and voice director Cathleen McCarron.
In a strictly limited run as a visiting international co-production, The Confessions is playing in the Lyttelton theatre from 19 October until 4 November 2023 with press night on 23 October. Tickets start from £20 and are on sale now via the National Theatre website.
An international collaboration, The Confessions is the inaugural production of Zeldin’s own theatre production companies in the UK and France – A Zeldin Company/Compagnie A Zeldin – and is co-commissioned with the National Theatre, RISING Melbourne and Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. The play has already toured to Vienna, Athens, Barcelona and Avignon this year and will continue its European tour into Spring 2024.
A Zeldin Company was founded in 2019 with international collaborations at its core and began by touring the work of Zeldin’s Inequalities trilogy to Europe and beyond – including a successful run of LOVE at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in January this year, garnering 7 Drama Desk Nominations.
Reviews
The Stage ★ ★ ★ ★ ‘Engrossing’
Deutschlandfunk – Germany ‘The return of faith in the simple, straightforward power of theatre’
APA – Austria ‘A great tribute to a small life’
Libération – France ‘A giant magnifying glass on the world, that gives us access to the feeling of living a life’
