Royal Court anniversary gets a lift

Two of Britain’s greatest living playwrights, Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter, will help London’s Royal Court Theatre celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.

Pinter, 75, author of silence-filled plays such as “The Caretaker” and “The Birthday Party,” will appear onstage, starring in a production of Samuel Beckett’s terse “Krapp’s Last Tape,” the Royal Court announced Tuesday.

Stoppard, 68, whose teasing, metaphysical dramas include “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “Jumpers,” will write a new play for the company. Due to open next June, “Rock ‘n’ Roll” will chart the recent history of Czechoslovakia, from the Prague Spring of 1968 to the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

“This play is so fitting for the 50th anniversary of the Royal Court. It takes the history of the left, the censors, rock music and identity,” said artistic director Ian Rickson. “It is incredibly fitting that we have a play like that, which is so ambitious, in our 50th anniversary year.”

“I want to be part of the Royal Court’s history before I pack it in,” said Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia. “Some of my best nights of the last 40 years have been spent in the Royal Court’s auditorium. I don’t want to fall under a bus before having a play on its stage.”

From Associated Press