The Royal Shakespeare Company is to mount a new production of David Edgar’s political play Maydays in Stratford as part of its autumn Mischief Festival.
Edgar will also perform for only three performances an autobiographical, one-man show, Trying It On.
Maydays was first staged by the RSC at the Barbican Theatre in 1983. It won that year’s Plays and Players best play award.
It tells the story of idealistic young people who came of age in 1968 and were drawn into revolutionary politics. For some, the commitment defined the rest of their lives. For others, the experience was one of disillusion and betrayal.
A story of defection from east to west as well as from left to right, Maydays tells the interlocking stories of a vicar’s son turned student radical, a young Communist who becomes a Conservative ideologue, a single mother and political activist and a Soviet army officer who ends up as a dissident.
The cast will be announced later. Owen Horsley directs Maydays which will run in The Other Place from 20 September until 20 October.
Edgar’s show Trying It On also relates the events of 1968 to the turmoil of today. He was caught up in the student revolt of the time, which defined his politics and gave focus to his playwriting. Now he confronts and is confronted by his 70-year-old self today. Has the world changed or has he?
It marks Edgar’s professional debut as a performer. Christopher Haydon directs the production which is produced by China Plate as part of its partnership with Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry. It will première at Warwick Arts Centre from Thursday 7 until Saturday 9 June before transferring to Birmingham REP on Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 June.
It has a three-day run at the Studio in The Other Place at Stratford from Thursday 18 until Saturday 20 October before transferring to London’s Royal Court for four dates which are already sold out.
Further details about the Mischief Festival are available at the RSC web site.